We like the disco sound--HEY!

[muckefuck]

The suppliers of monshu's digital cable just added a metric bumload of new channels, 98.9% of which are subscription and show up only as blank screens. So why do we have to surf through them? If the intention is to make us break down and purchase all ten NBA channels in order to finally see what's on them, all I can say is that Bush and Blair's lovechild will part the North Atlantic with a burnt kipper before that happens. Surfing has finally become an odious chore and we shall be forced to learn the numbers for the small handful of channels we actually watch. Of course, many channels changed numbers with the latest shuffle and so we've had to poke around to find them again. The local "All-Foreign Channel" is MIA, as is Korean Broadcasting, but Spanish-language offerings seem to have doubled.

Just last Saturday, we discovered what seems to be a local cable-access Latino video show originating in with My Angel Baby Productions in New Lenox. I nearly pissed myself when I realised that the name of the all-male Tejano combo Los Angeles de Charly meant "Charlie's Angels". Also feeding our insatiable taste for the best in world music were That-One-Hour-Bollywood-Programme-That-Is-Not-Namaste, Amerika! and two newly-discovered Nippop shows, Japan Pop and Hey! Hey! Hey! Sadly, still nothing that showcases monshu's favourite, Mainland Chinese boy bands, but we'll keep searching.

We also stumbled upon the broadcast premiere of O Brother, where art thou? on commercial-rich TBS. monshu rather enjoyed it; I did, too, once I started watching it as an amusing mythological tale and put out of my mind any thought of a connexion with the actual South (such as trying to reconcile the (northern?) Mississippi setting with Nelson's Oklahoma accent, Turturro's affected Appalachian accent, Clooney's Northern Cities Vowel Shifted accent, Hunter's Georgia accent, and Duvall's Alabama accent; or trying to reconcile the characters they play with the disproportionate vocal gifts of the singers they lipsynch). It made me want to dig up my copy of the soundtrack. I love the songs, and I'd much rather hear them with no context than the often-direspectful context the supposedly music-loving Coen brothers supply. ("O Death" particularly suffers; if I were Ralph Stanley, I'd be pissed off--newfound notoriety notwithstanding.) It was a gorgeous film and some of the little period details were charming. (I was especially taken with a "Thirsty? Just Whistle!" at a roadside stop.)

Comments

[bunj.livejournal.com]

First of all, I think you're being a little critical about "O Death." That song is older than the hills, and just because Stanley has a Tennessee accent, doesn't mean the song has any narrow regional roots.

Second of all, I took the weird geography and variety of accents in stride (I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Goodman yet, he was the most painful to my ears). It's supposed to be mythic. Besides, this being the Depression, you had a lot of movement. There's nothing to say that any of the characters originated in Mississippi, particularly those on a prison farm.

I'm confused as to why you're upset about the variety of music in the film. They obviously wanted to showcase many different musical forms. I can't think of any, offhand, which were out of place. Considering that much of the music was sung by the actors (the choir at the river, the gravediggers, Chris Thomas King, etc.), I think you have a high fidelity. It's not like people only listened to one kind of music in the period. They even have an explanation as to why we're hearing more older forms than the jazz and country you'd expect. In these times of trouble, people are conforted by "old timy" music.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

First of all, I think you're being a little critical about "O Death." That song is older than the hills, and just because Stanley has a Tennessee accent, doesn't mean the song has any narrow regional roots.

Stanley's actually from just over the border in Virginia. The song does, in fact, have narrow regional roots. It's an "shout" from Appalachia, a type of religious song. There were many cleavances in the Old South, but one of the biggest is between the Appalachian hill country and the low country. The latter is the Dixie stereotype with its huge plantations and the white-suited elite that owned them. The hill-folk, however, opposed this elite and the slavery that supported them; it's why West Virginia split off when Virginia seceded. The Primitive Baptist Churches (which, AFAIK, were never associated with the pro-slavery Southern Baptist Convention)--of which Stanley is a member--are strong among them, whereas the planters were much more mainstream.

So here we have a simple Appalachian religious song put in the mouth of a member of the plantation aristocracy and leader in the KKK and you can't understand why I would call that perverse and disrespectful?

I already said that I took the accents in stride once I realised I could only enjoy it as a sort of fantasia on Southern themes. Despite the Homeric pretentions, it's not "mythic". Faulkner is mythic. (Yet, that doesn't prevent him from Joycean fidelity to his chosen locale). Twain is legendary. (Ditto). The Coens are just sloppy.

I concede your point about the other songs, which is why I said in my previous reply that I was primarily annoyed by the use of "O Death". Some of them (like the gravediggers' song) are so de-emphasised, though, that I hardly remember the contexts they appeared in. They add flavour, but what do they add in thematic terms?