Sunday 6 September 2009

I'm coming round from my first decent night's sleep in over a month. The news this morning that racists might be given a mainstream political broadcasting platform had me thinking further about Wednesday's post. Is it only in music that it's acceptable to use lazy racial stereotypes?  Terms like 'black music' are still used quite loosely, outside the context of history. The MOBOs, awards for 'Music of Black Origin' are named more carefully, but you do get things like the late Stephen Wells's crushing dismissal of Belle & Sebastian as "real-pop-hating no-talents celebrating their own inadequacy with music so white it's translucent".  To be honest, the charm of B&S is largely lost on me too, but I don't think it's because they're white. 

I watched this last night: basically a 60 minute advert for the Beatles' back catalogue dressed up as a documentary. But even coming through a freeview box into my stereo, the remastering job on the material sounds absolutely stunning. Two hundred quid for the box set of mono CDs is pushing it though.

There's a few days left to object to the planning proposals for Otago Lane. Somehow this wee haven of civilisation has survived the developments on either side of it so far.