Remember January? Before 2006 became the year that metal broke, it seemed like electronic music, whether it was techno or house, dubstep or grime, ambient or noise, was on its way to a stellar year. Maybe it’s a testament to America’s pop appetites and we’ve learned that we’re just not as omnivorous as critics initially believed, or more likely, had hoped. It’s a lament I share, albeit not quite as deeply.
Nitsuh Abebe [aka Nabisco OTM] summed the experience up thusly:
So what’s scaling back on its crossover potential? Well, the fact remains that it’s a technical record. There’s emotion (see “I Love You”), but it’s not an emotional package; there’s pop, but it’s not a human pop album.
That, in a nutshell, answers Mr. Sherburne question about the otherwise insatiable appetite for music Americans, and maybe people in general, are believed to have. Maybe Americans are looking for those In the Aeroplane over the Sea experiences in music brimming with more conventional pathos. Or better publicity, cf. The Knife’s Silent Shout. After all, mourning hasn’t cornered the pop market [or has it?] Maybe it’s just about information aka trivia, meaning that at root infovores consume and digest materielle without much consideration of taste.
But Modeselektor’s Hello Mom! [technically a 2005 release, but oh well] has pathos, but sadly never achieved the sort of recognition that generates an ethos, which is just a fancy way of describing these momentary fluxes in world-history. The elegiac “In Loving Memory” offsets the glitchy happiness that’s all over the record. It’s a rare reflective moment on a quintessential party album. TTC’s “Dancing Box” [see above] and the rest of side one are what make Hello Mom! so ecstatic, bouncy and fun, reminiscent of Mouse on Mars’ 2004 headspinner “Wipe That Sound.”