Songs of Joy

[luka]

nothing says joy like a family band of Mormon Polynesian teens from Minnesota doing v mid-80s young Whitney/Madonna post-electro

leaves We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off in the dust in the precious sexual innocence Grand Prix

(famous sample 2.5 min for any trainspotters)

i downloaded this song as part of a bundle on the torrents in about 2005ish and never knew a thing about it.
i was always curious cos its clearly 'odd' slightly. great story. Minnesota doesnt sound like a natural destination
for Polynesians but i guess that church sends them wherever it wants to. theyve made massive inroads into
Polynesian communities.

 

[luka]

posted one up thread a few hours ago but you tweet/post so friggin' much that it's already buried about four pages ago!

also i had to go into away from dissensus and the company of men to dwell in the wilderness for 3 weeks and undergo temptations and trials so now im back i thought i should make up for lost time.

 

[droid]

Every atom that meets these waves is permeated by joy:


And this. Gospel repurposed. A hymn of grief & faith, but also of the intense joy of music, the temporal call of the dance and the irresistible compulsion of song.

 

[luka]

droid are those songs which for you both express and instill unadulterated joy?

yesterday i wrote and then deleted a whole long thing about Impressions era Curtis (minstrel & queen)
after deciding the music had a ruefulness about it that made it stop short of joy. that the emotions were too mixed and complex,
the performances and the song writing too nuanced, too intelligent and sensitive to sit plumb with this thread.

 

[droid]

Yeah, there is nuance there, I agree. With the uniques though I think that bassline transmutes the ambiguity of the Mayfield and the combination with the harmonies pushes it up the joyfullness scale.

The Tenor Saw is more complex though. More of a joyful yearning tinged with sadness.

I dunno though, is it possible to have joy without pain, yearning, sorrow? Doesn't the very idea of joy conjure nostalgia and regret? When was the last time you felt truly joyful?

Incidentally, its a source of perennial confusion that the queen majesty riddim is based on Minstrel & Queen whereas the Queen of the Minstrel Riddim isnt.

 

[mistersloane]

wistful, highly literate - that is to say, French - joy as aspirational beauty

it's literally an ode to the joy in Ella Fitzgerald's voice, the joy of experiencing that joy, in a kind of anti-racist context

normally I think block c+p lyrics is gauche but this is a rare justified case

(translated from French obv)
It's like joy
Like a smile
Something in her voice
That appears to ask us to come
That makes us feel strangely good
It's like the whole story
Of black people
That is swinging
Between love and despair
Some things that dance in you
If you have got it, you’ve got it
She, she has it
I dont know what this is
That others do not have
That brings us in a funny state
She, she has it
She, this strange voice
She, this strange joy
This gift from heaven that makes it beautiful
She, she has it, She, she has it
She, she has it
She, she has it
She has that little extra soul
That indefinable charm
This small flame
Struck on barrels
On pianos
On whatever god can put in her hands
Show your laugh or your sorrow
But you don’t have anything, that makes you the king
That you still look for the powers that sleep in you
You see, it does not buy
When you have it, you have it
She, she has it
I dont know what this is
That others do not have
That brings us in a funny state
She, she has it

OMG yes. I'd totally forgotten about France Gall, thank you. Poupee De Cire, my god, how joy is that one too?

 

[mistersloane]

I've had to leave the room while listening to this at Rich's old place after coming back from a club because it was actually unbearably beautiful.

Fkin hell really?

 

[mistersloane]

This is probably the most joyful thing I've ever heard:

That was on my list, not that version though. I play the Velvet Undergound increasingly, so much, so varied, so good sometimes. This version of What Goes On - if you haven't gone through their live stuff do, it's much better in some ways, check out the Matrix Tapes :

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kym3xgrEISA" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[mistersloane]

Well, if that's all your ideas of joy, then I'm definitely not shagging any of you.

 

[mistersloane]

this is like a joyous follow-up to Smalltown Boy - don't give up, together we'll break these chains of love

I think that video of the guy in the tube singing A Little Respect is amazing re : joy

 

[mistersloane]

The Tenor Saw is more complex though. More of a joyful yearning tinged with sadness.

I dunno though, is it possible to have joy without pain, yearning, sorrow? Doesn't the very idea of joy conjure nostalgia and regret? When was the last time you felt truly joyful?

Yeah I went through that as well trying to choose my 5, joy in suicide, joy in angst, joy in burning things down, feeling joy in sorrow, it's a really hard one, hence aksing for help, or thinking it was interesting, cos I thought it would be easy and I'm a week and half in now and still trying to work it out.

 

[mistersloane]

droid are those songs which for you both express and instill unadulterated joy?

yesterday i wrote and then deleted a whole long thing about Impressions era Curtis (minstrel & queen)
after deciding the music had a ruefulness about it that made it stop short of joy. that the emotions were too mixed and complex,
the performances and the song writing too nuanced, too intelligent and sensitive to sit plumb with this thread.

I think that's accurate re Curtis, for me too commercially determined to ever reach joy.

 

[droid]

On a purely musical level, always found this riddim to be deeply joyful.


Perhaps most exemplified by the chart bound knock off.


And even the meta commentary contains traces of joy along with Sibbles bafflement and self aggrandisement.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

padraig for instance doesnt associate joy with energy. he associates it with soft, pleasant sounds, in the way a brasilian might for instance

not really tho. there's a recency bias cos so much of my listening nowadays is in that greater disco continuum, but a lot of those tracks are highly energetic.

listen to the South African records I put up - the more township/bubblegum especially can get pretty wild

it's true I wouldn't associate joyous music with abrasiveness or harshness, tho as with anything I'm sure there's some exception or another

actually I wouldn't really associate joy with soft + pleasant either. soft especially. unless you just mean major keys + general positivity.

I guess I kind of associate joy with uplifting, maybe that's the difference - i.e. why I find so many gospel-influenced disco + house records joyous.

whereas something like ardkore I would call euphoric rather than joyous.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I mean the joy in this

granted it's definitely a record I can see making people weep, but tears of happiness

(btw never knew until recently that that's where Ten City got "That's The Way Love Is" from, one of very favorite house tracks of all time)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think that video of the guy in the tube singing A Little Respect is amazing re : joy

I watched that, ya very nice moment - that's what I'm saying, the kind of record people joyously sing together on a subway platform

 

[luka]

I guess I kind of associate joy with uplifting, maybe that's the difference

joy=uplifting is not something i would argue with.

 

[luka]

u can definitely hear the origin of young Whitney + Madonna but 1) Gwen was a true diva on that OTHER level

dont think no one spotted this dad opinion btw. slyly trying to conflate whitney with madonna like it is in any way the same thing!

 

[luka]

i think becasue youre that older generation youre devoted to an idea of 'hip' that strikes people from my generation as dated and outmoded and self-limiting. im sure my tastes will appear the same to people in the generation below mine mind you.

 

[luka]

it's a connoisseur's aesthetic and it's very closely tied to record collecting and the conventions and certainties of the 1980s and '90s. it would be interesting to analyse i think but i have to go and do some work for a change.