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Has anyone else heard this? I'm really surprised by how much I like it, how consistent it feels (not least of all because I'd heard mixed reports - although some of those clearly stem from people who think Miss Kittin is "over", which is the kind of ridiculously fickle and trend-obsessed attitude that gives people who like music like this a bad name).
If I was trying to be a wanky music journalist obsessed with gimmicky comparisons I'd call I Com "the electroclash This Is Hardcore", in that it has that same sense of being disillusioned with hedonism and glamour while still being caught up in it. If the new Felix Da Housecat album makes you feel like he understands what it's like to think certain people are cool and want to hang around with them, and makes you feel that that's okay really and maybe you'll achieve that dream, maybe they'll reach out their hand to you one day; whereas what I've heard of the new Miss Kittin album makes you feel like it's not okay to want that, these people really despise you for wanting to be like them and you never could and anyway, they're lives are crushingly empty, so more fool you for falling for it, chump. Which has led Jefe de Jefelaces to make the inspired point that this album is also equivalent to Mobb Deep's The Infamous if you "substitute thuggishness for louche cool."
Thoughts on individual tracks:
- I think on the basis of 'Meet Sue Be She', Miss Kittin may have ingested more cocaine than most people ever even see in their lives. That's the way the song sounds, anyway: rushing headlong, the back of its throat still dripping. First time I heard it, I thought I hated it. Now I think it could well be genius but if I heard it played somewhere I was out, it might give me a purely aurally-induced anxiety attack. It's just so... shrill. Easy to feel certain things towards: exhiliration, jealousy, fear, a certain uneasy admiration maybe? But hard to feel love. I have a feeling that this may all be very carefully deliberate, however.
- 'Professional Distortion' provokes a simpler but more upsetting mix of emotions: desire + guilt. I think if I'd actually fancied Tatu rather than just thinking their music was romantic, then this is how they would have made me feel. Although as I become more familiar with the song and start to universalise the sentiment so that it applies to my job too, the guilt is lessening.
- 'Kiss Factory' appears to have the same tune for the chorus as Chicks On Speed's 'Fashion Rules', but that's okay, they're friends, and both songs are good... Again, it's cynicism about the music industry, which would be tiresome if the tune wasn't so catchy.
- 'Allergic' makes me think of Debut-era Bjork.
- 'Requiem For A Hit' is just astonishing, possibly appalling, the closest comparison in pop terms must be 'Smack My Bitch Up', only gone booty-bass and with a woman at the controls... It starts with a guy chanting "I beat that bitch with a hit" over and over, then slows for a minute so Miss Kittin can sing a little refrain that ends with her imploring "and beat this bitch with a hit", then the guy starts up again, and then she starts saying "I beat that bitch with a hit" instead. Insane. Is it about BDSM? Spousal abuse? Drugs? Music? All of the above? Who knows...
- 'Dub About Me' = probably my favourite track on the album at the moment. Proof that you can be cold and romantic and yet warm and human all at the same time. Impossibly sad and lonely. Awww.
Post, please! I don't want this thread to die the same death as the Felix one... |
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