DAVID BOWIE - Scary Monsters (Virgin)

I borrowed this from Marco because his reaction to Destroyer was, "This really sounds like Bowie," and when it comes to Bowie, Marco knows whereof he speaks. So I told him that I'd really never liked Bowie before but I'd listen to anything once, etc.

I don't like the guy's voice. Never noticed it before, I think, because I'd never heard a record where his singing was *all* I disliked. Here, though, the music grabbed me (no idea if that's something special about Scary Monsters or a result of some change in me) only to leave me frustrated with Bowie's singing. It's showy and stylized with no payoff; he wants me to listen to him sing, okay, I got that part from the fact that he's singing. But he sings in a way that always tugs at the edges of my awareness, trying to pull me away from whatever else in the song I might have been focussing on but not ultimately providing any reason for it if I give in, like a 3-year-old. "Aaron! Aaron! Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!" "What?" "Um... I don't know."

Possibly I hear Bowie that way because he sounds just like that guy who did all those crappy songs on the radio when I was just starting to listen to pop music in 1982 like "Let's Dance" and "China Girl". What was THAT guy's deal? Anyway, whoever he was, I shouldn't hold the resemblance against David Bowie, the androgynous artsy envelope-pusher who recorded this record in 1980.

But I'm just not feeling it.

FRANK ZAPPA - Zoot Allures (Ryko) +4 listens

Two ambiguous words keep coming up in writing about Zappa: 'serious' and 'difficult'.

Difficulty in performing something might mean difficulty listening to it, might not. Quick/layered/jagged Zappa appeals to me more directly than some of the more drawn-out material so I suspect those kinds of 'difficulty' diverge highly for me, but I'm not technically-minded enough to even know what's really hard to play, so -- dunno.

'Serious' is worse. Zoot Allures is largely dour/mirthless/grim. It's not profound/reflective/significant. In talking about his own music, I get the impression Zappa almost always meant the latter kind of 'serious' when he used the word, but commentators haven't always followed suit. Oops.

Zappa's sarcasm and objectification of women play better when he seems to be having fun, which here he does not. The music demands lack-of-fun, though, and a cohesive, inventive rock record soothes my concerns about Zappa being an ass in the same (possibly spurious) way that his prior goofiness did -- by making it seem like he might have had a sense of perspective.

Anyway, this is my 9th/his 22nd, the first Zappa album after the point I'd been warned his quality started to fall off, and I like it no less than what came before. Bodes well.

THE ARTFUL DODGER presents - Rewind 2001: Lessons From The Underground (Warner UK)

In the three years for which the tag "UK garage" has meant anything to me, I believe I've found exactly one (1) track I liked which didn't have some association with the Artful Dodger. This 160 minutes of tracks endorsed (though not all produced) by the Dodger lads is good! But it's also about all I'll ever need of this. All fads should burn out so neatly.