|
For the current week, the song is: "Burning Car" by John Foxx
This song was mostly chosen because I'm in a real John Foxx mood right now, and my brother just got back from Europe recently with some of the old John Foxx material that has been unavailable over here for so long (trust me; I've been looking for about ten years, ever since I heard of the guy!) This ancient song is at the beginning of the musical period that I could call 80s; it may have actually been recorded in 1979, but the sound is definately post 70s. John Foxx already had a prolific career as the band leader for Ultravox before he went solo. His first album, Metamatic, which I hope to review in the review section, was a classic and "Burning Car" was from that same time period, although not on that album. The synthesizers are very analogue, alien and robotic, while unlike many of the goofier early synthpop groups, Foxx looked at the darker, minimalist and dehumanized approach that would so characterize synthpop in later years. The songs main line is extremely minimalist, with only percussion, vocals and the odd analogue synthesizer noise here and there, but the chorus has a beautiful soaring synthline, accentuated with wordless vocals. Apparently, as Foxx has recently taken to the studio again, there is a newer version of this song available, but only on limited edition cds. With any luck it will be made available for order from his web site. In the meantime, if you want to hear it, contact a record store that can get imports and ask for John Foxx's Assembly, which is a sort of greatest hits album.
|