Big Orange Crayonmusical thingsMomus Stars Forever Le Grand Magistery I wasn't really sure how to write this review, since my normal style of "yay! music is fun!" doesn't really suit a Momus album. Therefore, I was actually thinking of forgoing writing a review all together, which I do a lot, but since I've been listening exclusively to this album for three days, I decided that I couldn't just do that. So please excuse me if this seems more pretentious than normal. No, I don't consider myself a real music critic, but I did want to write my thoughts about this album without going through my normal lens. Ok, first some background. Momus got in a bit of legal and therefore financial difficulty due to a song off of his last album. In order to pay for his legal costs, he introduced pop music to the practice of patronage and announced that he would write a song about anyone who would give him a thousand dollars. He got 30 responses fairly quickly and wrote songs about those thirty lucky/mad people/organizations. This got a great deal of people who for some reason hold up pop music as a grand socialist front to society quite angry at him, although I see it as a refreshingly honest approach, rather than a greedy capitalist pig kind of thing, but I can see that position. Yeah, some of it was motivated by money, but there is something deeper going on or else he wouldn't be so proud of it, and I think the whole thing goes quite a way at knocking down people who see pop music as something more than it is. Momus is one of the few people who does pop music as art and gets it right. He isn't as conceited as a group such as Pink Floyd, or any of the so-called "art rock" bands that make obtuse self serving sludge but still think very highly of themselves. Momus, while a self-described megalomaniac, still is very honest and direct in his music, which is something that many people seem to be unable to get past, despite the fact that he has been putting out albums for years now. He is often labeled as perverse and just left at that which I think is a greivious and idiotic mistake. Yes, he does use naughty words and talks about things that you (most likely) would not discuss with your grandmother, but there is a huge difference between the way Momus talks about things of a sexual nature and the style of a group such as the Insane Clown Posse. While the latter is simply self serving, attention grabbing obscenity, Momus has a brilliant wit that doesn't really appear too often in pop music, which explains why so many people miss the point completely and get stuck on the fact that he talks rather bluntly about anal sex and refuse to further examine the point. It's like taking Vonnegut as pornography. But don't take this to mean that it is detatched and cold as is the normal assumtion for intelligent pop music. Momus seems to genuinely get involved with the people he writes about, he doesn't just sing their biographies with a drum machine going in the background. He makes insightful observations about his subjects and touches upon several universally understandable, if not universal, themes and turns out a number of touching looks at genuine human beings. The music itself justifies whatever things anyone may find objectionable in its making. Certainly any other musician does some of their work for the interest of money, the difference between Momus and any other musician is his honesty and brilliance. He's enough of a genius that he could write an album called "Nick Karpowicz is an idiotic swine" and come to my door and kick me in the head and take all of my money and I would still enjoy the result. Or something. Certainly, however, if you are easily offended, you really should avoid this, but would be missing a brilliant album. I even feel a little weird when other people are in the room and "Stephen Zeeland" is on, but still, I think it's worth it. It's a lot easier to talk about here than to explain to other people in person, since there isn't the embarassment factor going. Anyway, on to the music itself. A good amount of it sounds very much like the demo songs built into my brother's Yamaha synthesiser (but quite a bit more complex), while other parts touch upon styles too various to list. But if you can't stand the thought of a Scottsman singing over the music to a NES game, you probably won't be able to listen to this, no matter how brilliant it is. I'm lucky in the fact that it's like ambrosia to me and the only time that I mind is when people peek inside the door, listen, and look at me oddly. But when I'm alone with Momus, it's perfect (don't take that wrong). Really though, at least read Momus's web site, since he can really describe what he's doing for better than I, and if you like the concept and aren't bogged down by pop idealism, then definitely listen to this. Total score 4126 out of 4126 |