Songs to Remember

[think!harvard!uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor (Kit Te Kudasai)]

>And, fer chrissake, WHAT is the Scritti album "Songs to Remember" like???
>I'd like to know before I plop down bux for it.

You've come to the right place when you ask me that sort of thing, as
I am a *serious* Scrits fan. If your interest in C&P'85 is in the
shiny surfaces and the subversion of language within the context of
real, live commercial pop, then you'll perhaps be disappointed.

You'll find the earlier work of theirs that you may recognize (the 
"Sweetest Girl", "asylums in Jerusalem", etc.) here, but the overally
surface is far less slick and calculated. Likewise, the wordplay just
isn't quite as uh...successful at being both Pop and Suversive Lacanspeak
at the same time. The reggae/ska flavourings are considerable more 
evident, and there are female b-vox and that whompity bass. A number
of my friends much prefer STR, as they feel that Green has left the
fold (the Marxist fold) and sold out (witness the slickness, the
recruitment of "real" musicians like Maher and Gamson, etc.) and 
done such a good job of imitating real pop that it *is* real pop
(the implication is that it's bad...at least until your favorite
star gets popular. Then, presto-Kuhnian paradigm shift!). They
prefer to hear Robert Wyatt playing tweety organ against that organ
drumbox/dub echo stuff on "Sweetest Girl". Not much in the electronic
crack and whirr neighborhood here, but lots of indications that 
Green has a way with a Word (if you get my drift).

I like them both, though for different reasons. And the CD is worth
every cent of it (no finger, no circle in the air). "perfect way"
is very nearly that.

If that's not bad enough, you ought to check out "Skank Block Bologna"
on the ROught TRade compilation "wanna buy a bridge?" It will leave
you speechless....*That's* Scritti Politti?