Songs. Nothing but a couple of songs. Obviously ones I'd considered including in a music post. Only I never do it that way. For a long time now, all I've been doing is tagging possible post fodder as "Favorites" in Firefox then, when the time comes, looking through what I've got to pick out a few I haven't used already. It's messy, chaotic and highly inefficient. Suits me perfectly.
It also means that mostly, when I post another episode in my extremely unpopular "What I've been Listening To Lately" series, there aren't all that many songs in there that I have been listening to lately.
I mean, it's not like there aren't any. There's always a sprinkling. I listened to White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter a dozen times before I posted it. But then, I would, wouldn't I?
Also, as an aside, I just brought it up on YouTube to play in the background as I wrote this and it took me three search terms to find it. Lana+white didn't work and neither did Lana+feather, although the first finds other songs in her extensive catalog - White Mustang, White Dress - and the other gets you that duet with Billie Eilish she did on Billie's Birds of a Feather.
I had to go all the way to Lana del Rey+hawk before her current single came up. Does that sound right to anyone? I mean, the damn video has 4.2m views. You'd think the algorithm would be smarter about it. If I was Lana's publicist, I'd be pissed.
Anyhoo, I was only looking at the view-count out of curiosity. I stopped worrying about how many people read anything here years ago. Most counts are contradictory anyway. I don't trust any of them.
Except, lately, I've noticed the figures down the right-hand side of the list of posts does seem to make a kind of sense. Tells a story, even. That's the one labeled "View Count" on mouseover and it does actually seem to mean something, for once.
I can see the page views trickling in there as soon as I publish. Usually a few people catch the post immediately and then the tally rises slowly over the next day or so until it hits about a third to a half of the number of people Feedly tells me follow the blog.
From that, I can see fairly clearly which kinds of posts get more attention. Music posts are right at the bottom of the list. Maybe a fifth of my supposedly loyal audience takes a glance at those. TV and media posts, it depends on the subject matter. Gaming posts get pretty consistent views, with the popular games getting the most, as you'd imagine.
The biggest winners seem to be topical posts, especially ones with titles that make it clear what they're about, although people do seem to find those even if the titles I give them skew a little sideways. For example, the most-viewed posts this year so far were on the Steam Winter Sale, Discord asking for proof of age and layoffs at Playable Worlds, in that order.
It's all notional, of course. Even if I was certain what the numbers meant and even if I trusted them, I still wouldn't tailor my posts to make them go up. Although I do like to see numbers go up...
I only mention it as an introduction to how this came to be a music post in the first place. Oh yes! That's what it is! Did I fool you? Have you gotten all the way to here without realizing you'd been suckered?
Yeah, that won't work. Readers can smell a music post a mile away, no matter how I try to hide it. So, for the handful of you still here, let's get to it! First up, those two mysterious tunes I saved in a draft post several weeks back.
Bad Bad Milk - Oh! Gunquit
Where that one came from I have no idea. Fourteen years old so I guess it turned up in the sidebar suggestions when I was looking at something else. The self-described "'rumble-bop trash blitz freak-a-billy'" five-piece was formed in 2011 and they’re still going. There's a whole sub-culture of this kind of thing. It never penetrates the mainstream but it's always there. Been around since I was at college, at least, so that's half a century. Must be a fun lifestyle.
Go Away - Junky58%
The answer to the eternal question "What if the Ramones had been Japanese? And girls?" Ok, that's two questions...
Yes, I know exactly what you're thinking. It's "How great would it be if they covered the Carpenters' "Top of the World", isn't it? Thought so. Well, ponder no longer!
Ok. That's those two squared away, plus a bonus cover. Now what have I got marked for real? Oh, I know! How about the UK's entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest?
Eins, Zwei, Drei - LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER
Remember post-modernism? Big in the 'nineties? Looked a lot like the future, then. That's the trouble with the future, though. Hang around too long and you have to live in it.
On that note, we'll have to wait until May to find out how it does but you can place your bets now. Here's a compilation of all 35 entries boiled down to just over seventeen minutes of power ballads, flag-waving, and forced wackiness. Should be a fun four hours...
Time - Star Moles
Speaking of time...
Got a lovely roll to it, don't it? Sounds like something Johnny Walker might have played on his afternoon show in the 'seventies, back when I was still at school. Is that a good thing?
Genuine Connection - Swell
Because sometimes you just wanna rock.
if you wanna party come over to my house- Fcuckers
And othertimes you just wanna dance.
Arms Wide - sadie
Hey! We had that one last time!
Yeah, like you remember...
No but it's true. I put it in and wrote eight paragraphs off the back of it and then when I was done I thought "I'd better just check...". Probably should have done that first. Anyway, not wasting all those words so it's a second go for sadie! I think that might be the first time that's happened.
Also, wow, was it really a whole month ago I did one of these? To the day, no less. And two Friday the Thirteenths in a row, too. Spooky!
Until about a year ago, if you'd asked me (Which, why would you?), I'd have said pop songs were three minutes long. They're not, though, are they? They never have been.
I was thinking about it yesterday, when Mrs Bhagpuss was getting ready to take Beryl to work. (Beryl has a job, by the way. It's only an hour every other week but she gets paid. I won't go into details. Confidentiality and all that.)
Anyway, as she was getting ready, she was had The Weakest Link on (Mrs Bhagpuss, that is, not Beryl. Beryl doesn't really watch TV although it's HD, which apparently dogs can see and recognize, which they couldn't with any earlier definition.). It was a celebrity edition and Pink Pantheress was on, which was bizarre to say the least of it. She did really well, too. Last to be eliminated before the final head-to-head.
Anyway, Mrs Bhagpuss had no idea who Pink Pantheress was, which tells you something about market separation. I'd have said she was kind of a big deal now but everyone's a big deal these days and still no-one's heard of them. (Tell Chappel Roan that and see what it gets you... then again, Mrs Bhagpuss knows exactly who Chapell Roan is so maybe we're on a different scale of fame there...)
Getting back to the point, one of the things Pink Pantheress was famous for fifteen minutes for was saying no song needs to be longer than two minutes thirty. When I was making all those songs with Suno last year, a lot of of them were well under three minutes long. I worried about it a bit until I started to notice so were many of the songs I grew up listening to on the radio.
See Emily Play? 2.47. Happy Jack? 2.07. I Get Around? Two minutes dead, when they did it for Ed Sullivan; a few seconds longer on record. Sure, songs - even some singles - got a lot longer in the proggy seventies but mostly they held that line.
Later, as I made more and more songs artificially, they got longer and longer. And they still sounded great to me. Short? Long? Doesn't matter, does it? Songs are the length they need to be. Well, the good ones.
Oh, yeah. That all started because Arms Wide starts and ends in media res for a running time of 2.10 and it's perfect that way. Also, I freakin' love autotune! Why do people hate on it?
So, what else do we got? Let me check my laptop a mo... Oh, wow... there's some really good stuff on there... I should have started with a couple of these.
Never mind! It'll be a bonus for the hardcore. Anyone still here?
Thisworldly - R. Missing
Best one from R. in a while. She knocks them out and they're all quality but this is a dreamer. That stately pace. That ethereal tone. Very, very 'eighties, in the best way.
Bad Moons - American Football
Remember what I was saying up there about songs being the length they need to be? Case in point.
Is it just me or does it sound like the Smiths? Did Morrissey invent emo? God, I hope not...
Okay, three more then this can be Thirteen Songs for Friday 13th Pt. 2 and it'll seem like I planned it!
American Girls - Harry Styles
Hah! Who had Eurovision and Harry Styles on their Bhagpuss Bingo Card today? No-one?
Classic title, good tune, clever video. What more do you want?
The Way It Goes - Aimée Fatale
Remind me - what year is it again? She's playing in the next city over from me in April but if I didn't make the effort for Sunday (1994) I don't suppose I will for Aimée, either. God, I'm so old now! (Not to mention lazy.)
And finally. A banger to finish.
HEELS BROKE = DIED - MGNA CRRRTA
Oh yeah, that one was NSFW just a little. Maybe could have mentioned that. Only the words, though, and who listens to those?
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