oh, you're divine.

arrite kids, this one's about music, not books - but it's still about stories, so never you fear. i need to start this post with something comforting and (hopefully) familiar that relates almost immediately to the rest of this bizniz (for once!): 


  When I was just a little girl
  I asked my mother, what will I be
  Will I be pretty, will I be rich
  Here's what she said to me.

  Que Sera, Sera,
  Whatever will be, will be
  The future's not ours to see
  Que Sera, Sera
  What will be, will be.


if you haven't heard of wax tailor, i suggest you start hearing. the video below is almost all of the music video to their super awesome song, Que Sera (sound familiar?). 





the whole song is available on their website, and also here. hopefully you watched/listened to that, and noticed the abundance of Metropolis footage. i'll get into that sort of .. strategically. first of all, sound clips! throwing a bajillion sound clips into a super rad song is what wax tailor is all about (among others) - the artist is actually just a french dude who totally wins. but the compilation of various clips has a great (and intentional) effect in this song. for instance:


  "i need everyone to understand"
  "i don't understand"
  "i don't understand"
  "there are a lot of things we don't understand either"
  "we need answers from you"
  "what did you expect to find?"
  "what is gunna be our future?"
  "it's your responsibility to do something about it!"


et cetera. which brings me to my first point (thank god!). "que sera" implies we have no control over our future! what happened to responsibility?! it can be very comforting to think that FATE will run its course and we'll just float along que sera-ing though this world, but seriously? not so much. 


also, the juxtaposition of soundclips demanding understanding and getting none show the awesome dialectic between those with control and those without it, and the lack of communication, the lack of understanding. this can even be applied to the mother and child in the original doris day tune: child asks mom, mom says 'no worries, we have no control over our future.' if i were that kid, i might be comforted; but when i got a little older, i might be a little pissed off. 


this, of course, applies at a much higher level, to society/government at large (oh no, she's getting all 1984 again). hence, Metropolis. like everything i mention, if you haven't seen this classic, please do. the point is similar to those mentioned in the aforementioned post re: Feed/1984; that we're becoming drones, susceptible to ever-increasing levels of brainwashing and control through fear and desperate times and overpopulation and blah blah blah. i really do love these apocalyptic theories. it's almost as though, as each generation sort of fails at building on the one that came before, we're giving up our rights to everything out of laziness and the idea that whatever will be, will be. we are not responsible for our future or The Future, or any of it. someone else will handle that.


anywho. there's so much to dissect here that i'm just going to let it sink in and probably engage these ideas at a later date. if you like wax tailor, and what technology has done/is doing to music (or are at all interested by it), i'd like to make one more suggestion... 


seattle's emp (experience music project) is hosting a super stinking awesome conference next week about technology and music, called pop machine. it's FREE, and goes from April 15th through the 18th (check out the agenda by clicking on the dates in the upper right), which includes some very cool sounding lectures, panels, workshops, music, and i definitely saw mention of a cash bar. i will be there for what i can be there for, and will lament what i miss. did i mention it's free?