Yom Kippur, that's what for, do all your shopping at Wal-Mart

[sovay]

In other things I had no idea about, skygiants just introduced me to the musical experiment by Komar & Melamid and Dave Soldier that produced "The Most Wanted Song" and "The Most Unwanted Song" because thanks to the overlapping element of "intellectual stimulation," both compositions include references to Wittgenstein.

spatch came home as I was finishing up listening to the second and in between laughing hysterically, I said something like:

"So the most wanted song is essentially an R&B ballad with a slight tendency toward surrealism, but if you caught it on the radio and didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics, it would sound like a reasonably normal sample of adult contemporary, especially if you were told it had been generated by a neural network.

"The most unwanted song is a twenty-minute cantata of soprano sprechstimme of increasingly unhinged cowboy motifs while a children's choir reminds everyone to do their holiday shopping at Wal-Mart. A third voice enters with a bullhorn and shouts across the political spectrum until the whole thing finishes up in a side-by-side choral finale à la Broadway. It is a work of musical genius. It is n-v-t-s nuts. It sounds like David Byrne was driving through True Stories when he got T-boned by Arnold Schoenberg in Pierrot lunaire. It could be successfully performed by Russian Futurists to the extreme outrage of their audience. It is a bit on-brand these days that in the last section someone just shouts, 'Fascism!' The soprano raps about Wittgenstein to the beat of a tuba and then there is a bagpipe solo."

The website estimates that "fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece."

*raises hand*

Comments

[gwynnega]

I find the most wanted song hilarious (especially the wildly generic saxophone).

The most unwanted song is glorious.

[sovay]

I find the most wanted song hilarious (especially the wildly generic saxophone).

I cracked up at the start of the second verse! I just wouldn't say that I like it, whereas the most unwanted song has gone immediately to my heart.

The most unwanted song is glorious.

I strongly suspect that more than two hundred individuals do, in fact, enjoy it.

[gwynnega]

I would have left out the children's Walmart bit, but other than that, I loved it.

[sovay]

I would have left out the children's Walmart bit, but other than that, I loved it.

I loved even the children's Walmart bit! (I keep forgetting the brand name is no longer hyphenated.) I was not expecting Yom Kippur and Ramadan.

[selkie]

...Should I click before the cruddy low-grade fever leaves me or...

[sovay]

...Should I click before the cruddy low-grade fever leaves me or...

PHILOSOPHY ITSELF IS NONSENSE

*bagpipes*

[selkie]

Christ on a raft, it's like Dada had a baby with the Watts Hymnal after an unprotected encounter at the Princeton Annual Munch and Rooftop Egg Catapult, and then that baby was kidnapped by Leontyne Price and... I'm not that far in but I don't think I'm okay?! Charmed, but perhaps about to die? How do I tell --
they are singing about Yom Kippur.
Edit: I saw it in your subject line, but they really are.

[sovay]

Edit: I saw it in your subject line, but they really are.

They are.

[choco_frosh]

That description rules.

[sara]

I like songs about cowboys, also bagpipes and accordions.

But then, my taste is distinct enough that people, including you, fairly regularly email and tell me to go buy records (the latest being https://margocilker.bandcamp.com/, which is awfully good and which you might like too, there are 100% cowboys).

[sovay]

I like songs about cowboys, also bagpipes and accordions.

The latter two especially strike me as cultural variables. For several different cultures.

which is awfully good and which you might like too, there are 100% cowboys

Thank you! I'm not familiar with her at all.

[rushthatspeaks]

Okay, the most unwanted song is a straight-up banger.

[sovay]

Okay, the most unwanted song is a straight-up banger.

BUY SPURS THAT JINGLE
AT WAL-MART

I went looking, but no one appears to have asked Greil Marcus for his thoughts on it, and I feel this is a loss to music criticism.

[vass]

*raises hand*
*raises mine too*

The 'Most Wanted Song' gave me the reaction I think I was supposed to get from the unwanted one. Neck muscles tensing right up from the first notes, flinched back against my seat, and just getting worse the longer it goes on. It's an exact palette swatch of why I used to think I hated popular music. It is the same texture as fairy floss (US English: cotton candy) and it physically hurts, it's a large part of the sensory experience that makes shopping hard for me, it feels like running my fingernails over very fine sandpaper right after cutting them, except that the fingernails that hurt are the guard-hairs on the nape of my neck.

From the composer's notes:
If the survey provides an accurate analysis of these factors for the population, and assuming that the preference for each factor follows a Gaussian (i.e. bell-curve) distribution, the combination of these qualities, even to the point of sensory overload and stylistic discohesion, will result in a musical work that will be unavoidably and uncontrollably "liked" by 72 plus or minus 12% (standard deviation; Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic) of listeners. [bolding mine]

Oh thank fuck, not just me.

The 'Most Unwanted Song'... well, the first few bars did not register as "my thing", but they also didn't cause me actual physical pain. At about 1:30 I started smiling. I could do without the chimes, but it did add a certain... something, and made me think I would like to see what their sound was paired with in the music video of this. I bet it'd be like an anachronistically 1980s Powerpoint slide transition. Some of the sound still hurt, there's a sound production thing for some of the instruments, I don't know how to describe it, but it hits my speaker just wrong, but not as bad as the first one because it's not a whole wall of it. The soprano and the Walmart kids were a relief, because they didn't hurt at all. And the operatic imitation of yodelling was actually beautiful. By the end I was even liking the cowboy stuff. And the elevator synth 'Morning Has Broken' was an inspired touch. I hated that section, but I APPRECIATE THE ARTISTRY (and that they didn't go with Pachelbel's Canon in D.)

All in all, this piece gave me real, unironic joy, and I would happily listen to it in concert. (I would also trollishly put it on a playlist for a very long drive just to see the reaction from the other passengers, but only if I were the driver so they couldn't throw me out of the vehicle.)

It sounds like David Byrne was driving through True Stories when he got T-boned by Arnold Schoenberg in Pierrot lunaire.

That is a beautiful and accurate description. (I'm not familiar with Byrne and True Stories, but I have met (and liked) Pierrot lunaire.)

It could be successfully performed by Russian Futurists to the extreme outrage of their audience.

Come to think of it, this piece does give me a little more insight into how Le Sacre du printemps provoked riots.

[sovay]

It's an exact palette swatch of why I used to think I hated popular music.

Yes. I don't have a violently physical reaction to it, but it is exactly reproducing the textures of a kind of music I never like to encounter in other people's cars. I am entertained by the way the lyrics have gone just slightly off-piste ("As she filled the ketchup jars / She looked at him like a rising sun / Shining down on his dark star"), but I do not enjoy the sound of it beyond the gravelly, optimistic delivery of the line about reading Wittgenstein and would not re-listen again for fun.

All in all, this piece gave me real, unironic joy, and I would happily listen to it in concert.

I would love to see this piece performed. I feel like ideally the audience joins in singing along at the end or you get a riot. Either should be considered a success.

(I would also trollishly put it on a playlist for a very long drive just to see the reaction from the other passengers, but only if I were the driver so they couldn't throw me out of the vehicle.)

(I would also love to be in the car when you did that.)

That is a beautiful and accurate description. (I'm not familiar with Byrne and True Stories, but I have met (and liked) Pierrot lunaire.)

Thank you! I recommend True Stories; it is a favorite movie of both rushthatspeaks and spatch and it risks sounding like a masterpiece of irony in description when much of the point is that it is completely sincere. It is a musical about the small town of Virgil, Texas as observed by a nameless, visiting, earnestly curious David Byrne in the run-up to its sesquicentennial Celebration of Specialness and it is one of the best movies I know to convey the weirdness of ordinary things and the perfect normality of weirdness. This is not intended to sound tautological. A summary of the plot sounds a lot wackier than the deadpan, quizzical, curiously restful and numinous experience of watching the film. It includes the presence of Legba, conjured by Pops Staples. John Goodman should have more roles where he sings.

Come to think of it, this piece does give me a little more insight into how Le Sacre du printemps provoked riots.

Apparently I would just have sat in the audience and laughed with delight.

[thisbluespirit]

I don't have spare sound tolerance to listen to 25 minutes (! ok, they got me there, that I do not want!), but that does sound pretty wild! XD

[sovay]

I don't have spare sound tolerance to listen to 25 minutes (! ok, they got me there, that I do not want!), but that does sound pretty wild!

It improved my mood immensely at the end of an otherwise horrible day and I've listened to it twice more since then!

[kate_nepveu]

Oh goodness, I also listened to these recently--likely from the same source--and now I have the children's "chorus" yelling "Christmas-time!" stuck in my head. Again.

[sovay]

Oh goodness, I also listened to these recently--likely from the same source--and now I have the children's "chorus" yelling "Christmas-time!" stuck in my head. Again.

It's unjustly catchy.

[skygiants]

Definitely from the same source! 😂

[bibliofile]

I <3 Komar & Melamid. I know a few people who loved the music, but I'm pretty sure that not all of them listened to any of it for fun, on pupose, regularly (as opposed to those times when someone comes over and you say, "You must hear this!").

Of course, the comments are even better. I never did have actual words for all my reactions to their music, nor did I get all the references.

I loved the People's Choice art, as well. Those wacky Dutch!

(Here via network)

[sovay]

I <3 Komar & Melamid.

I had never heard of them! I am interested in their visual and other conceptual art now.

Of course, the comments are even better. I never did have actual words for all my reactions to their music, nor did I get all the references.

I am delighted to have provided the forum. It is definitely the kind of experience that needs to be shared.

I loved the People's Choice art, as well. Those wacky Dutch!

You're right; that's amazing.

(Here via network)

(Pleased to meet you! Hello.)

[rushthatspeaks]

The U.S. Least Wanted image reminds me uncontrollably of the pink snow bunny from Bloom County.

... also, the Least Wanted Song reminds me uncontrollably of the Avalanches' 'Frontier Psychiatrist', in a good way. I would pay a fair amount of money for a Least Wanted Song video in the same style as the Avalanches vid.

[sovay]

The U.S. Least Wanted image reminds me uncontrollably of the pink snow bunny from Bloom County.

I hadn't thought of the great Pablo Gookman in years!

I want to know specifically how Denmark and Italy's Least Wanteds happened.

I would pay a fair amount of money for a Least Wanted Song video in the same style as the Avalanches vid.

I had never seen that video. Yes.

[watervole]

I liked the first minute or so of the unwanted more than the wanted, but don't care greatly for either.

[sovay]

I liked the first minute or so of the unwanted more than the wanted, but don't care greatly for either.

A legitimate reaction!

[moon_custafer]

COWBOY LIVING!!

(Hope I got that right, it’s been a few years since I listened.)

[sovay]

(Hope I got that right, it’s been a few years since I listened.)

(Entirely correct.)

[moon_custafer]

I also found a transcription of the lyrics: https://genius.com/Komar-and-melamid-and-dave-soldier-the-most-unwanted-song-lyrics

[thanate]

...I'm hearing definite shades of Leonard Bernstein's Mass tossed in there, too. I think I may need to hunt up some better speakers to properly appreciate this.

[sovay]

...I'm hearing definite shades of Leonard Bernstein's Mass tossed in there, too. I think I may need to hunt up some better speakers to properly appreciate this.

I look forward to hearing what you hear when you do!

[choco_frosh]

The Most Unwanted Song sounds like a rejected bonus track from Oedipus Tex. One made during a went-too-late rehearsal, or at the post-recording party where half the cast was high.
ETA: Do you know if P-Funk has heard these yet?

[sovay]

The Most Unwanted Song sounds like a rejected bonus track from Oedipus Tex.

P.D.Q. Bach is in fact responsible for the only other instance I have heard of classical rap. (But now I have "Save it for your horse" stuck in my head, so, thanks.)

ETA: Do you know if P-Funk has heard these yet?

I have no idea! I would hope everybody has heard the most unwanted song, but I hadn't.

[sorcyress]

Listening now, will toss thoughts in:

Don't mind cowboy motifs, turns out I find the clip-clop pretty soothing
The high voiced parts are not really something I'd listen to otherwise but are fine.
The bagpipes are _hell yes_ especially when they come in strong at about 4 minutes. Less so when they fade out between children singing.
The children are not inherently bad¹ but again aren't something I'd listen to much otherwise

Honestly I think my biggest beef with this is that it keeps cycling _between_ different things. Just follow one thread through!

(Ah shoot, and then I got distracted with morning routine. Will post this anyways)




1: So, I joke that I've never seen Frozen because it came out while I was working in a second grade classroom and therefore "I have heard every single song. Repeatedly. Sung by seven year olds". Actual seven year olds are pretty charming, but they are, for good reason, not renowned for their singing ability.

[sovay]

(Ah shoot, and then I got distracted with morning routine. Will post this anyways)

I appreciate it!

(I like the switching off because it feels structured rather than intrusive, but I understand the concept of varying mileage.)