ambling towards gemorrah

December 21st, 2007

Ok, now you got me angry - and at least I don’t need to artificially, New-York-cop-style pump myself up on public insurance funds to demonstrate just how much. But fast on the heels of my last post, reader Miss Momo asked me for some good recent-ish songs. So let’s get on with it, eh?

The first song stands as perhaps the perfect end of the year song for living in New York. Hinging on hipster opera vocals, the irony of would-be-gentrifiers lamenting the purchase of the city by fuckheads would stand at the forefront were the song not so damned great. It’s fantastic to see a song explicitly about urban politics that is handed down by white newcomers; its a sign that America is a) waking up to realize our total and complete lack of livable urban infrastructure and, simultaneously that b) we have no plans to reshape it - are, in fact, blocking it all attempts at salvation.

Was it any different, though, way back? Tanya Stephens sings about the music biz in this 2004 classic, but it would be remiss to not see the same kinds of trends happening in the political and other worlds. Emphasis on superficial additions to our city - ooh, bikes on Governor’s Island!! - over sustained commitment to the myriad of other deeper endemic problems that revolve around people’s engagement with the civic sphere plague the real business going on in this country, a thesis a priority-lover would love.

Indeed, it is the dark end of the street. But what will the new year bring?

LCD Soundsystem - New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
Tanya Stephens - Way Back
James Carr - The Dark End Of The Street

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Entry Filed under: 90s, indierrrific, info, racial idn't it, soul