Comments for Rob Manuel

Comment on Some thoughts on Blondie’s Heart of Glass by winston

winston — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:18:07 +0000

Interesting. I recall reading a book that called Heart of Glass the most important single of the 1970s because it successfully blended rock and dance music. What replaced disco as the 80s emerged was dance rock, which this song is a very significant example of. If you look up Billboard magazine from that period and specifically the articles by Roman Kozak they discuss the emergence of rock discos like Hurrahs and Danceteria. Dance rock becomes the pop music of the early 80s; think of Borderline by Madonna with its guitar intro. What makes the song specially is waht your article notes: the song was a hybrid, whether its described as bringing new wave to disco or disco to new wave.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in that SOS article. Inconveniently for Chapman’s recollection, Blondie was already talking about Moroder, Kraftwerk and eurodisco before they ever met Chapman and even had covered I Feel Love before then. Chapman and Eno were the two great producers of the 70s. Yet Chapman had less impact on Blondie than Eno had on the Talking Heads.
The 75 demo is just that. They recorded the demo in someone’s basement under the most primitive conditions before they even had a keyboardist. (Destri joined in Nov. 75). By 78 they had already recorded synth heavy songs like Cautious Lip (this came out especially in live versions) so the suggestion that they would have recored anything that resembled the 75 demo is far-fetched. And it was the members of Blondie itself that discovered the CR-78, so they deserve quite a bit of credit for the final product.
Rolling Stone, which always underrates Blondie, cited this song as one of the top 500 of all time. Its ironic that while often denounced by the Disco-sucks crowd, if you could point to a single song that signalled the genre’s demise it would probably be this one. They turned it into something different.

Comment on How do you stop fiddling with your gadgets whilst listening to podcasts? by godspants

godspants — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:54:09 +0000

I find playing Solitaire or other repetitive games doesn’t distract from listening.

Comment on Some thoughts on Blondie’s Heart of Glass by DF Lamont

DF Lamont — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:39:39 +0000

I recall seeing a documentary about what a technical challenge this song was to make, in part because drum machines were new , because it was a huge difference for the band in terms of style, and because the whole band had to sync their performance to the drum machine, which was apparently very difficult.

A lot of apparently simple pop songs are more complicated than you first think, which is part of what makes them appealing, because they have slight differences at odds with your expectations. “My Sharona” by the Knack, sounds very repetitive, but pulls it off because it actually subtly changes every verse.

There is a good book by Steve Levitin, a musician, producer and neuroscientist, called “This is Your Brain on Music.” He talks about how Stevie Wonder make subtle changes on drums throughout “Superstitious,” and how Led Zeppelin often tuned to each other so they are off key.

Levitin wondered how emotion tended to be expressed through music, and discovered that changes in tempo seems to be what does it, by comparing different performances of the same recording.

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/2011/03/expressing-emotion-through-music/

This is a problem for drum machines, since they can make things dull.

Comment on Some thoughts on Blondie’s Heart of Glass by kristian j.

kristian j. — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:41:18 +0000

Quick thoughts on your thoughts:

3) Calling heart of glass “clever” harmonically is like calling heating frozen pizzas sophisticated cooking. Catchy? Yes. Clever? Not really.

11) Gwen Stefani was 35 when launching her solo career in 2004. Just saying.

Love the song though, and that Guy Pratt video.

Comment on The secret places alcoholics stash booze by Claire

Claire — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:11:48 +0000

As the daughter of an alcoholic mother, I find all of this terribly disturbing. Giving tips on hiding booze? I’ve had to suffer through my mom’s disease for over twenty years. Yes, it is a disease and it’s absolutely horrible. I’m still in this nightmare, too; I stumbled upon this site by googling “where alcoholics hide their stash” because I’ve been trying to find her’s for months… Bleh.

Comment on Why I wish Douglas Adams had stopped smoking by Ambient Sheep

Ambient Sheep — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:32:31 +0000

The biggest thing I got from the excellent Allen Carr book was this:

That the relief you feel when you smoke a cigarette, that good feeling you get, is simply how everyone else is feeling ALL THE TIME. Smoking a cigarette doesn’t make you feel better than normal, it’s just bringing you from a crappy place back up to the normal baseline that everyone else enjoys anyway.

Once you realise that, it becomes a lot easier to give up.

The other really useful thing to draw from that is to then realise that if you smoke one a few days after having given up, it won’t do anything positive for you at ALL, since you’re already at the normal baseline…all it will do is make you start feeling bad and craving the next one in 45 minutes’ time.

Comment on What Sting could teach Facebook by Matt

Matt — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:31:32 +0000

On the flipside, promoting your posts over Facebook can get a fair amount of traffic. I’m guessing that’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make. You’re also thinking of quitting Twitter, which is a GOLDMINE for finding blog readers. Unless you have a good base of loyal readers and you’re an expert in SEO, you might find your stats dip a little. That might not be important to you; I don’t know.

Comment on What Sting could teach Facebook by toby

toby — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:46:14 +0000

Rob, well said, getting straight to the heart of the evil internetz….

Comment on Beer Beer Beer by tony

tony — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:32:45 +0000

Hi Where can i get this song??!! can you send me a mp3 of it please?

This is the single greatest thing i have EVER heard! the quiet night down the pub will NEVER NEVER!!!! be the same again

Thank you.

Comment on What Sting could teach Facebook by newman

newman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:33:03 +0000

good article, have been there to.