Living With Music: A Playlist by Simon Critchley

FEBRUARY 25, 2009, 11:50 AM

Living With Music: A Playlist by Simon Critchley

By BLAKE WILSON

Orjan Ellingvag Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley is professor of philosophy at the New School for SocialResearch in New York. His latest book is “The Book of Dead Philosophers.”

When I was a boy in England in the 1970s, you had two options: if you wereworking class, you were a soul boy; if you were middle class, you were a hippy.I fell pretty squarely into the former category, but ended up at an academichigh school, surrounded by bell-bottomed, badly-coiffured multitudeslistening endlessly to junk like Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis. I learned veryearly on to conceal my love of Motown, Stax and every conceivable musicalemanation that emerged from the body of George Clinton and the bass ofBootsy Collins.

And then, one summer night in 1976, I heard the Ramones’ first album. All of asudden, it was year zero. Peace and love had been replaced by hate and war.Hippies still chased me down the street for wearing bondage trousers (difficultto run in, let me tell you), but it was all right — history was on our side, asBarack would say. The social fabric of England was disintegrating witheconomic collapse and a terminal slide into abject national mediocrity. It feltgreat. There was no future in England’s dreaming and there still isn’t. This isone of the reasons I really like recessions.

So, my life with music has always been shot through by this muddle of musicalcontingencies. I could try to give a nerdy lesson in the 10 defining musicalmoments of my life and show how carefully I used to read liner notes and themusic press. But I’ll forgo that and honestly list the songs that I’ve beenlistening to most over the past 12 months. This is going to be a littleembarrassing.

1) Blind, Hercules and Love Affair. Tranny disco transcendence! My wife andI have been dancing around at home to this song since about last June. I havefive mixes of it, and it sounds even better after a couple of gin and tonics. Thesong’s genius is the way the melancholy of the lyric — with its emphasis on

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darkness, blindness and pain — combines with the grinding retro beauty of thedisco music track. The best dance music is always intensely sad.

2) With Every Heartbeat, Kleerup featuring Robyn. I had some drinks withAndreas Kleerup in Stockholm recently, and he is a prodigious talent, in myview. His knowledge of the history of popular music is awe-inspiring. Thissong is minimal Swedish electro with a simple pop melody and a very cleverstring arrangement. The song also has the most perfect bass drum sound.Irresistible.

3) Twenty-Four Hours, Joy Division. Yes, I know. Living in the past. I saw“Control,” the biopic about Ian Curtis, last year. I thought it was weak incomparison to the glorious “24 Hour Party People,” but it took me back to theManchester miserablists. What draws me in with this song is its effortlesspower. It’s like watching Zinedine Zidane pick up the ball in midfield and movethrough a crowd of opposing defenders.

4) A Milli, Lil Wayne. In imitation of Tom Cruise’s jaw-dropping dancesequence in “Tropic Thunder,” I like to groove at home to Lil Wayne. It looksmuch better with the lights out. But I have this great bass speaker that soundslike it’s going to explode when the bass kicks in on this track. What I like aboutLil Wayne is the way he takes his time during his tunes, holding back thewords, slurring, sliding and moving against the beat.

5) From the Ritz to the Rubble, Arctic Monkeys. This is the choice of my16-year-old son, Edward, who has exquisite taste. We play it in the car whenare driving back to see my mum in England. Edward can even do the Sheffieldaccent perfectly. By the way, the Arctic Monkeys have the best drummer in theworld.

6) Until We Bleed, Kleerup featuring Lykke Li. Andreas Kleerup again. Did Imention that I have a thing for Swedish women singing in English? No doubtit’s some long Abba hangover. Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife might alsohave made it onto my list. But The Knife sadly seems to have ground to a halt,and Lykke Li points towards the future. I saw her in a small club in Tribeca inearly 2008 and she’s a star.

7) Crimewave, or Courtship Dating, Crystal Castles. I am one of those sadmusic bores who can trap you in a bar and talk about Kraftwerk for an hour.Anyhow, I listen to a lot of electro, and Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider arenever far from my thoughts. I couldn’t decide between these two tracks by theCrystal Castles, as they are both perfect. The group also writes wonderfullydark lyrics: “stove burns on my hands … when skulls hit the ground / visions of


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the hosiery.” What are they thinking about?

8) Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It), Beyoncé. I told you this was going tobe embarrassing. I could blame my wife for downloading the video. But thetruth is that I play it over and over again a lot when she is out at work. Maybe Iwill write a male hysteric’s guide to pop music one day.

9) Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. The Birthday Party wasthe best live band I’ve ever seen. I was at some mid-scale venue in London in1980 to watch the Nightingales, one of the many splinter bands that broke offfrom the mighty Fall. The Birthday Party was the unknown support band — Ithink it was their second or third gig in London. They played the whole of“Prayers on Fire” before its release. It was a glorious noisy, discordant, sexyexperience. The most recent Nick Cave album is hardly that, but the man notonly has Blixa Bargeld’s guitar discord to accompany him, but everything hedoes is utterly defined by intelligence and humor.

10) Quantum Theory, Jarvis Cocker. This last track on Jarvis’s first soloalbum is sublime, but if you let the track run until 29:40, a hidden tracksuddenly appears, with an unprintable chorus and a completely truesentiment.

I vowed to keep myself to 10 choices, but if there were world enough and time Iwould have to mention: “What’s a Girl to Do?” (Bat for Lashes – with awonderful video), the entire back catalogue of Black Box Recorder (am I theonly person who thinks this band is wonderful?), The Dead Texan (lushambience), Underworld’s album “Dubnobasswithmyheadman” (which I listento every couple of weeks) and I haven’t even mentioned the Ohio Players …


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Living With Music: A Playlist by Simon Critchley

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