"I welcome personal accounts of how these records fitted the lives of their listeners."
First of all, thanks so much for this "Naughties" Countdown, which so far has been as informative and insightful as last year's "advent calendar." Where did this year go? Where did this decade go? It honestly feels like it just began to me, so it's a little hard to explain my nostalgia--and I feel most nostalgic about "Folktronic," since it was the first "new" Momus album I ever bought. Contrary to what the dissenter says at the start of these comments, the author's dramaturgy only makes we want to go back and listen to all these songs yet again and hear what I might have missed.
Best to be aware that I didn't discover Momus until a couple years after "Stars Forever," so this era will always seem like the ur-Momus to me. I remember eagerly posting stupid fanzine-type comments to alt.newsgroups.momus and feeling a mixture of embarrassed horror and amazement whenever the actual Momus appeared like a genie from the bottle and commented on something I'd said. Maybe all of us posters to that newsgroup and readers of the ancient Momus website had just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of influence on the direction and production of the CD--so I feel in a way this record, too, was a collaboration of sorts.
By the time "Folktronic" came out, I'd accumulated all the other Momus CDs I could, but it was even more exciting to have something current; as I recall, I couldn't find it in any record store, so I had to order it from some place like CD Universe (was that the place to look in '01?) It almost goes without saying that I immediately loved it, though it was a lot to take in all at once--it seems like it might be the longest Momus album, and certainly one of the densest (though "Joemus" is even denser). And I, too, always felt the last third of the album never got enough attention; it seemed both to broaden the overarching "folk" concept and provide a nice little dessert as well, with the "Penis Song" in there as a palate-cleanser.
Also, this was the first new Momus lp I was able to put on an mp3 player--and remember, this was before the iPod. It was exciting to put the complete works on one of the several overpriced devices I ran through at the time and go out strolling (but seldom shuffling). For a while I owned a hand-held organizer that I trained to play "Handheld" at startup. I could also listen to the songs, ripped to my computer and accompanied by visualizations--that was lifetime ago when those things were novelties, wasn't it?
At that time, I was discovering people like Bruce Haack and Moondog and Raymond Scott, too--as well as song-poems, outsider art, and "secret histories" that only the Internet could reveal. The turn of the century (2001, to be pedantic) was a heady time, and "Folktronic" seemed to mark the occasion well--everything old was new again and everything new was strange and disorienting and a little dangerous. George W. Bush wasn't even president quite yet and I can honestly say that despite our all-knowing sophistication we were more innocent, no? The first time I would see Momus live was only a month or so after the WTC bombing and "Folktronic" was not the centerpiece of the Momus performance, but other songs with a more political edge. Times had already changed!
So... I've gotten older and slower, while Momus seems to keep getting younger and more energetic (the Benjamin Button of the entertainment industry); I can no longer even begin to keep up with the prolific output of Momus on the Net or out in the World (one essay a week used to fill me up sufficiently), and now everything digital seems to weigh the world down instead of lighten it the way it used to seem to (Twitter, Facebook, etc., all those things I hate and refuse). But "Folktronic," though somewhat dated in the way things less than a decade seem to age faster than they will in another ten years, still sounds like a brilliant concept to me, with an equally brilliant execution. All children at school, some not even born when this work was recorded, should be issued a copy to help them understand what 2000/2001 was really all about. That includes you young'ens here!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Folkt
Date: 2009-11-19 02:47 am (UTC)First of all, thanks so much for this "Naughties" Countdown, which so far has been as informative and insightful as last year's "advent calendar." Where did this year go? Where did this decade go? It honestly feels like it just began to me, so it's a little hard to explain my nostalgia--and I feel most nostalgic about "Folktronic," since it was the first "new" Momus album I ever bought. Contrary to what the dissenter says at the start of these comments, the author's dramaturgy only makes we want to go back and listen to all these songs yet again and hear what I might have missed.
Best to be aware that I didn't discover Momus until a couple years after "Stars Forever," so this era will always seem like the ur-Momus to me. I remember eagerly posting stupid fanzine-type comments to alt.newsgroups.momus and feeling a mixture of embarrassed horror and amazement whenever the actual Momus appeared like a genie from the bottle and commented on something I'd said. Maybe all of us posters to that newsgroup and readers of the ancient Momus website had just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of influence on the direction and production of the CD--so I feel in a way this record, too, was a collaboration of sorts.
By the time "Folktronic" came out, I'd accumulated all the other Momus CDs I could, but it was even more exciting to have something current; as I recall, I couldn't find it in any record store, so I had to order it from some place like CD Universe (was that the place to look in '01?) It almost goes without saying that I immediately loved it, though it was a lot to take in all at once--it seems like it might be the longest Momus album, and certainly one of the densest (though "Joemus" is even denser). And I, too, always felt the last third of the album never got enough attention; it seemed both to broaden the overarching "folk" concept and provide a nice little dessert as well, with the "Penis Song" in there as a palate-cleanser.
Also, this was the first new Momus lp I was able to put on an mp3 player--and remember, this was before the iPod. It was exciting to put the complete works on one of the several overpriced devices I ran through at the time and go out strolling (but seldom shuffling). For a while I owned a hand-held organizer that I trained to play "Handheld" at startup. I could also listen to the songs, ripped to my computer and accompanied by visualizations--that was lifetime ago when those things were novelties, wasn't it?
At that time, I was discovering people like Bruce Haack and Moondog and Raymond Scott, too--as well as song-poems, outsider art, and "secret histories" that only the Internet could reveal. The turn of the century (2001, to be pedantic) was a heady time, and "Folktronic" seemed to mark the occasion well--everything old was new again and everything new was strange and disorienting and a little dangerous. George W. Bush wasn't even president quite yet and I can honestly say that despite our all-knowing sophistication we were more innocent, no? The first time I would see Momus live was only a month or so after the WTC bombing and "Folktronic" was not the centerpiece of the Momus performance, but other songs with a more political edge. Times had already changed!
So... I've gotten older and slower, while Momus seems to keep getting younger and more energetic (the Benjamin Button of the entertainment industry); I can no longer even begin to keep up with the prolific output of Momus on the Net or out in the World (one essay a week used to fill me up sufficiently), and now everything digital seems to weigh the world down instead of lighten it the way it used to seem to (Twitter, Facebook, etc., all those things I hate and refuse). But "Folktronic," though somewhat dated in the way things less than a decade seem to age faster than they will in another ten years, still sounds like a brilliant concept to me, with an equally brilliant execution. All children at school, some not even born when this work was recorded, should be issued a copy to help them understand what 2000/2001 was really all about. That includes you young'ens here!
To be continued in next comment...