james

• The Whispers video appreciation thread

  james

  March 2013

  DOR said:

  coolchris said:

  I have watched this nearly 500 times. Never fails to put me in a good mood.

  
  Caldwell especially.

  No doubt. On my list of Music Video Moves To Someday Master, the Nicholas Caldwell newspaper-fold-transitioning-into-Mashed-Potato-quickstep maneuver from the "Keep On Lovin' Me" video is definitely close to the top.
  
  I am, alas, still toiling near the bottom while endlessly fine-tuning my Eddie Money popeyed-fingersnap-white-scarf-dip-spin-transitioning-into-passenger-side-entry from the "Shakin'" video.
  
  I'll get there, though. Caldwell is the beacon. "If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing."

  

• The Official Soul Strut 100 Poll (V. 1)

  james

  April 2011

  mannybolone said:

  Personally, I still don't "get" the concept as it's now manifested

  I don't know how much there is to get, really. The initial framing was "The 100 Records That Soulstrut Likes Best," and what Raj was after was more like "The 100 Records Most Relevant To Soulstrut." I mean, look at your own collection: If someone were to ask you "What are your favorite records?", would the answer be the same as "What are your most important records?"?
  
  I know that the social is usually less interesting than the personal, that lists of important things are usually less interesting than lists of favorite things, but soulstrut has in recent years become so aggressively ahistorical and so exclusively personal that right now I think a look at the records that people feel have shaped this particular community would be more worthwhile than yet another Things We Like.
  
  That said, 100 is a lot of fucking records. I think most folks here could think of ten or twenty or maybe even forty records that have figured into their soulstrut experience in some important way; after that, memory and interest tends to peter out, and folks tend to fall back on the aforementioned Things We Like. Personally, I'd trim it. Considerably.