just an english comment passing through...

I dunno if you know this, but names exist in every language, and I can guarantee that you are not super familiar with all of those languages, including things like pronunciation and spelling in those languages

Congratulations to Lana for being nominated for two Grammys!

Also, let’s not forget the fact that language represents culture and identity. When most countries sing in English, it becomes harder to notice the difference between the UK and, say, Georgia. Where is the fun in that? If most songs sound like generic hits that could be from anywhere, that’s a step towards killing everything that makes Eurovision awesome. At least for me, much of the Eurovision enjoyment is about hearing music from different countries - and what I love most is exactly the fact that I get to hear songs that are wildly different from what Is available in my own home country. And let’s just admit it - language is a part of the general mood of a song, and much of that disappears in the translation process.

Stereolab “Free Witch And No-Bra Queen” b/w “Speck-Voice” 7″ (2001)

Today on Long Island hit the lower 30′s. Distant low clouds hovering above the horizon in front of a sinking golden, green, and blue twilight. Chilly air, no humidity. Stars and a waning gibbous moon already shining. It’s only early November but it really feels like it’s January 2007 in my heart. Have Nature deal the right cards and I can think back to New Year’s overnights and second-floor meetings at the radio station, techno parties on and off campus, the best moments at The Stony Brook Press, and meeting Cath- for the very first time over a 10 PM dinner and Elliott Smith CD’s. Thick bold Helvetica, flags and stripes of varying shades of blue and purple, greyscale images, and negative white space. The time no longer exists and everyone moved on but the euphoria is still alive when I think about it. “Free Witch And No-Bra Queen” was just a piece of the soundtrack to that era, and a product of a Stereolab run I made shortly after purchasing 2002′s ABC Music: Radio 1 Sessions and 2006′s Fab Four Suture from my final visit at Tower Records.

“Free Witch And No-Bra Queen” starts with a storm and uneven 90-second loop of Sergio Mendes & Bossa Rio’s “Primitivo” (’64) before going into the cat’s meow sampling Paul McCartney & Wings’ “Helen Wheels” (’73), with some additional stumbling, fallouts, quiverings, and faux-trumpets. “Speck-Voice” checks off everything Stereolab is: French pop, funk, Laetitia Sadier’s honeyed voice, and Seventies-pop nostalgia hit right on the bullseye. Both amazing sides were written by Sadier and Tim Gane, and this 7″ was sold exclusively during their 2001 Sound Dust tour.