Russell Davies

Get to the chorus

(And this)

"Favreau, a self-taught pianist who studied classical music in college, delights in the comparison of his work to pop song writing. “A good line in a speech is like a good piece of music,” he said. “If you take a small thing and repeat it throughout the speech, like a chorus in a song, it becomes memorable. People don’t remember songs for the verses. They remember songs for the chorus. If you want to make something memorable, you have to repeat it.”

Hit Makers - Derek Thompson

Disguised repetition

(Putting this here so I can link to it later)

“People find things more pleasurable the more times you repeat them, unless they become aware that you’re being repetitive,” Huron said. “People want to say, ‘I’m not seduced by repetition! I like new things!’ But disguised repetition is reliably pleasurable, because it leads to fluency, and fluency makes you feel good."

Hit Makers - Derek Thompson

This week

Agree. Good film.

52 singles: The Young Senators, Jungle

This might be a bit heavy for jazzycoffeeshopvibes. It's deeply funky proto-Go-Go. But, maybe I could slip it in during a particularly caffeinated moment. It's irrepressible.

 

This week

"commas matter" - Why Robert Caro now only has ten typewriters

"A lot of people think that they want to work in a cheese cave"

"Narrative medicine"

"Sea-level" / "From the time we're born we get feedback from people who are unskilled, starting with our parents. Are your parents all really skilled feedback-givers?" - Brené Brown's Empire of Emotion

Saving - Sylvie Baumgartel

52 singles: 2 Mad, Thinkin' About Your Body

Everything about this is low-effort and joyous. The Cadbury's rip-off, the MOST OBVIOUS samples, the phone-it-in name. It's a ricketty ricketty shed of a thing and that's what makes it so infectious. Why try harder when you can just throw all the best bits into a bowl and sell it as soup?

The only sadness is that this isn't the bootleg version, someone actually did some licensing. So that must have taken more than the half an hour they presumably took to do the record.

This week

Seasonal Words

Available on depop

52 singles: Zapp, It Doesn't Really Matter

You might not have heard this song but it will be familiar to you because Roger Troutman and Zapp are all over West Coast Rap. Either as an an influence, or a sample or on it. I remember discovering them via an i-D magazine compilation, found in a remainder record shop in Derby. 

They weren't exactly obscure but I'd never heard anything like it. It was odd and tight at the same time.

I also remember this appearance on Solid Soul. This is what making an effort looks like.

This week

I've been looking back at my blog, trying to find something I wrote. And I remembered that I used to post photos from the week. Just as a sort of visual diary. I'm going to start doing that again. Sorry. You can buy this first one from me if you like, on depop.

52 Singles: Nu Shooz I Can't Wait

I think of this as the second pillar of jazzycoffeeshopvibe. So relentlessly 80s. Everything old is new again. I remember hating this on TOTP. Horribly uncool. But loving it at the Coop Disco. That bass sound. Fantastic.  (The lately bass?)