M'Lady to Madan

"M'Lady"  Sly and The Family Stone  Greatest Hits
"M.I.A."  7 Year Bitch  Whatever: The '90s Pop and Culture Box
"Ma Jaiye Oni"  King Sunny Ade  Juju Music
"Machete"  Moby  Play
"Machine Gun"  Portishead  Third
"Mad Man Blues"  Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm  2 Man Wrecking Crew
"Madelena"  Gilberto Gil  Brazil Classics: Beleza Tropical, Vol. 2
"Madame George"  Van Morrison  Astral Weeks
"Madame Van Damme"  Lightspeed Champion  Life Is Sweet!  Nice To Meet You
"Madan"  Salif Keita  Moffou

   A couple of things.  I am going to change the name of the blog.  "Electric Sheep" was always something of a space-holder.  It is just a nerd dog-whistle, and the "uncanny94" in the URL serves that purpose as well as anything.  While I think "Electric Sheep" might work as a metaphor/critique for the recorded music industry, there are a lot of electric sheep on the web right now, including this collaborative art project.  So I am currently considering new titles for the blog (the URL won't change).  If anyone happens to stumble across this and have a brilliant idea, I would love to hear it.

  Additionally, I am now halfway through the alphabet.  While I am running a little behind my proposed pace of 4 posts per week (I am running closer to three per week on average, and that is due to sometimes week-long absences), I have largely stuck with it.  I am figuring I might let some more people know about this. Right now, I have told exactly three people about this, so if anyone else is regularly returning - I thank you.  I am going to clue in some more friends and associates, and we will see if anyone else wants to partake of this particular pretension of mine.

  "M.I.A." is a riot grrl song about the death of Mia Zapata of The Gits.  It is on the parallel '90s rhino box to Like Omigod!  Unlike that '80s set though, there seems to be a merger of "alternative" and "mainstream."  While Rhino saw fit to produce two parallel '80s collections (Left of the Dial is the '80s indie set - we will get to it), after Nevermind the distinction between "pop" and "alternative" was blurred and the '90s saw a move back and forth.  This is born out by Rhino's retrospective - the collection of songs include insanity like Cibo Matto and this 7 Year Bitch song alongside "Whoomp! (There It Is)" and "I'm Too Sexy."  I figure this is both good and bad.  On the upside, artists similar to those I knew and loved throughout the '80s finally got the respect and the financial gain that they justly deserved.  On the other hand, "alternative" became a much more static form, pigeon-holed by a marketing machine that had previously ignored it.  I recognize my own arrogance, and some of this might be whining at the loss of what had been "mine" to the broader, plebeian masses, but mostly it is a sense that something broad and creative has been constrained and controlled.  Not to worry - when one outlet for creativity shuts down (in this case the "alternative" network of college stations and indie halls in the '80s), a new one opens (the rise of Internet radio, podcasts, and other electronic, direct-to-user outlets).

  Gilberto Gil is one of the more fascinating people I have come across doing this.  Starting as a musician in the 1960s, he created Tropicalia as not only a musical style, but a cultural and political tool (my shallow perusal would draw parallels to Fela's Afro-beat, right down to the jail time).  He became involved in environmental issues and politically active.  In 2003, he became Brazil's Minister of Culture.  He has been a proponent of creative commons.  After leaving political office, he returned to music.  Here is a link to his entire 2008 album via Wired magazine.

  Astral Weeks is one of the more perfect albums ever recorded.  Any track off it is compelling - it immediately engages the listener and keeps him/her listening until its conclusion.  It is not a singles collection, but a song-cycle in the truest sense.  The album is so of a piece, it is difficult to take any one track and listen to it without feeling like the rest of it is missing.  That said, this 10-minute ballad about a drag-queen is as beautiful as any romantic love song ever written.