THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS BLOG
(BUT NEVER BOTHERED TO ASK)
Q: I DON'T GET THIS BLOG. WHAT IS IT ABOUT? A: This must be my 3rd attempt to write a blog and like the previous ones, it's all about the music that appeals to my ears. It's been a long way since I started obsessing about creating quirky mixtapes and sharing them is again the intention behind this project. But this time I've also wanted to have some sort of storyline wrapping together the eclectic music mixes that I make for this blog, so I came up with the idea of having these short mixes as the late night broadcasts of a fictitious pirate radio and created this mysterious narrative that toys with the grim, uncertain future of the music industry. So this blog shall serve as a source of interesting music for its scarce audience as well as a critic to how major labels responded to the ongoing changes in the distribution of recorded music.
Q: CAN YOU ELABORATE FURTHER ON THE BLOG'S NARRATIVE? A: Our story begins the year the music industry goes broke and an alliance is forged between pop artists and the music industry. United, they will do whatever it takes in order to regain control over the distribution of music and maintain the profitability of the music industry. As the plot progresses, the episodes will unfold a society where music lovers are heavily oppressed by a totalitarian regime known simply as "POP". Under the leadership of a feared-by-all tyrant who was once a charismatic best-selling pop star (a cross between Hitler and Madonna), this unstoppable evil alliance takes over the world through gruesome ways (including some dreadful ear-cropping methods) and imposes total control over people's private lives, regulating every cultural experience as well as dictating society's taste for music. Artists and bands who don't commit to the new rules of "POP" are sent into exile. Digital music players are confiscated, music bloggers are prosecuted and internet is banished from this world. In this bleak and apocalyptical scenario, music lovers all over the world, deprived of non-POP music, find solace in the strange and subversive broadcasts of a pirate radio station that only airs in the small hours, when supposedly "nobody is listening". And just like it happens to anyone who comes to listen to these hypnotizing clandestine broadcasts, you are recruited to fight "POP" and join an army of independent music lovers who want their ears back, along the right to listen to good non-commercial music.
Q: HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR THE STORY OF A RADIO STATION WHOSE LATE NIGHT BROADCASTS TURN THE LISTENERS INTO CLOUDS?A: I owe the inspiration to a fond memory I have from my childhood, when I developed the habit of sleeping with music on. As a pre-teen, I wasn't allowed to operate my brothers hi-fi or go near his vinyls, so my primary source of music was the radio.
Before going to bed, I would kidnap a beaten, discoloured white-going-beige radio-alarm clock that belonged in my parents' bedroom. I remember feeling hypnotized by the red numbers of the digital LED display of the alarm clock and consequently falling asleep as I listened to the local FM station. The radio lulled me to sleep and stayed on throughout the night. I often found myself waking from my sleep, as if magnetized by the strange sounds coming through its tiny speakers in the middle of the night. Soon I understood that the selection of songs broadcasted in the small hours were considerably different and sounded a lot more interesting than the music played on the daytime radio. It was thrilling for me to discover these less commercial tunes on my own. It felt as if I was entering a new dimension. This nocturnal assortment of oldies music, forgotten pop and the odd jazz number, quickly became the soundtrack of my half-awake, half-asleep dreams.
There's one song in particular that made me perk up my ears one night and that I still remember. It was
"Joe Le Taxi", a song by French popstress Vanessa Paradis. I clearly remember waking up in the middle of the night to this particular song and thinking, "what the hell is going on?" I could certainly recognize the melody, which sounded strangely familiar, but everything else was alien to me, including the language. This was the late 80's and a cover of that French song was a number one hit in Brazil, sung in Portuguese by a popular Brazilian children's TV presenter, so it didn't take me too long to recognize it. I was just not aware that there could be a different version of it, so I was immediately attracted by the strange familiarity of that sound. This combination of recognizable melody and foreign lyrics sounded so obscure and exotic to me, it got me puzzled and hooked at the same time.
I think that this Vanessa Paradis incident in my childhood pretty much explains my taste for quirky and exotic music as an adult. Perhaps the weirdest thing about it is that the musical universe that this song made me crave for is referenced on its own lyrics, something I've only found out about recently, with the help of Google translator. The song's lyrics in French describe a taxi driver who works on the streets of Paris at night, listening to Xavier Cougat and Yma Sumac, two exponents of the "exotica" genre, a music type I became obsessed with as I grew up. Joe Le Taxi was definitely a wise man and might as well be my favourite fictional character of all music lyrics.
"Strange Things Happen To The Radio" draws inspiration from these personal memories: the image of a LED digital display, the phony tropical sound of a forgotten pop song from the 80's, it all served as inspiration for this blog.
