Saturday, March 21, 2009

DR MIXOMATOSIS – MODULE 23: ORIGINALITY IN MUSIC (SELF RELEASED)


DR MIXOMATOSIS – MODULE 23: ORIGINALITY IN MUSIC (SELF RELEASED)

Much like those old Open University programmes that the BBC2 used to show on Saturday mornings in an era before Dick And Dom and Hider In The House, there is a strange appeal to the lecture of Dr Mixomatosis with this module.

In what could so easily have slipped into patronising instead the lecture happily overdoses on the entertaining in order to reach the height and pinnacle of show business: edutainment.

This is the disc that accompanied the lecture and with this CD you get ten acts for the price of five.

Beyond the crushed midget drone of “The Really Useless Group” opener the examples of originality (or rather lack there of) kicks in with “Unacceptable In The Eighties” which is a very slick and accommodating mash up of “Come As You Are” by Nirvana and “Eighties” by Killing Joke, which is a rip off even noticed by accountants (albeit ones that were students in the eighties themselves). The job Dr Mixomatosis does here is a very astute and tasteful one that acknowledges the value of the offending/guilty track but also how it ultimately adds and improves the use of the riff.

With “Drugbusters” the thievery performed by Ray Parker Jr on Huey Lewis And The News is painfully exposed in what is a more alarming and shocking (and previously unheard) piece of evidence.

The process of borrowing is next highlighted on track four by Kelly Osbourne raping Steve Strange of all his Visage glory to produce a song that sounds like a lukewarm Ladytron. Was it really worth the pain? This is the decision for the listener to make.

The closing example is perhaps the most heinous and disturbing but also the one that displays the biggest degree of revenge by using the original to expose the fraud as an aural/oral piece of cheese. With “Call On Valerie” Dr Mixomatosis manages to empower Steve Winwood to get up out of his comfy chair and wrestle back his vocals/lyrics back from Eric Prydz and with it substance and heart. Steve Winwood may not be a popular place to be at right now but up against this tat its Dad’s Army all the way.

And so it is with minimal persuasion that Dr Mixomatosis opens up the ears of the listener and allows them to make up their own decision as to whether true originality is possible in music and if/when liberties are taken is it possible to be fraud and still maintain credibility.

Thesaurus moment: pinch.

Mixomatosis

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