129: corrugated fibreboard and Kraftwerk

At work yesterday whilst hoovering some tedious rock song came on the sound system; not something I would usually even notice, but this pricked up my ears.  What is it, I thought; sounds familiar.  I have no idea who it was and stupidly didn’t think to ask anyone.  It was one of those terrifically tedious Coldplay-types I think.  The reason it sounded familiar was I instantly recognised it as a Kraftwerk rip off.  It took a few moments to place the song but I think it was Neon Lights off The Man Machine album.  The main synth melody from Neon Lights was repeated almost exactly the same over and over again in this mystery song.  But what was it?  Please help!  I just skim listened to Viva La Vida by Coldplay.  Not as entirely unpleasant as I expected; in fact I would go as far to say that it might be quite good if it didn’t have that fucking horrible singing on it.

After a bit of googling ‘Kraftwerk plagiarised’ I’ve discovered Coldplay did have trouble with another crappy song called Talk.  This is clearly ripped off Computer Love from Computer World.  I think this may be old news, and my inability to distinguish to completely different songs by one of my all time favourite bands says so much about my musical ear.  I need to get out more if this is the most interesting thing I can think to write about.  I should be living hand to mouth and tooth and claw, not home to bed and tea and slippers; wrenching every last drip of passion and gore from every fleeting moment of existence, tearing it (and other unspecified entities) up.  Instead I plod along ineffectually drifting, so much anger aimed in no particular direction, just floating without even the poetic allusions of clouds and dreams.  Just a solid but small lump of drudge.  If my life were to become visual form it may resemble a handful of matter scraped from the bottom of the canal; or it may resemble a medium sized 0.010 inch thick corrugated fibreboard box; or it may resemble a blank stare.

But I still can’t shake the feeling that it might not be that particular Coldplay song and that particular Kraftwerk song.  And also fuck you spellchecker for telling me Kraftwerk is not a word but Coldplay is; get your priorities right; ‘craftwork’ indeed!  Just wasted an hour reading about Stockhausen and Elektronishe Musik and a bunch of other related stuff on Wikipedia, whilst listening to similar sounds on spotify.  All I’ve achieved is a moment of elation upon realising that Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails is finally on spotify.  Plus I’ve read a bit about Philip K Dick and his mentally ill writer stereotypings.  Then my girlfriend clearly said the word ‘substance’ in her sleep.  And I’m one stage from picking up the nearest object with writing on it and just copying verbatim.  Other ingredients: The cream also contains glycerol, glycerol monostearate, cetostearyl alcohol, beeswax substitute 6621, Arlacel 165, dimeticone 20, chlorocresol, sodium citrate, citric acid and purified water.  Directions: Apply to the skin as directed by your doctor.  Read the leaflet before use.  For external use only.