I read a Fredric Jameson quote in a tweet I saw in the days following his death that went something like... every author, across their body of work, invents a language. The process of reading literature is the process of becoming fluent in the language of that author's world. I'm butchering the quote, and I'm not gonna look it up (sue me), but the idea haunts me still.
Then, a few days ago, I read this in a tweet:
which you've maybe seen, as I think I'd seen it before as well. And I immediately thought about Jameson, and his idea of author as inventor of their own language, which I've projected onto any artistic pursuit as invention or development of a personal language, which—projected onto Gluck's email—transforms miraculous times of effortless fluency from fluency in English to fluency in oneself.
That thought is what made me finally finally start this blog—even though I promised Jabez I would start one in September, maybe—because I hope that by writing to you often, you and I will both become a little more fluent in Alanese, a fluency which I've been missing these past few months.
Two noteworthy pairings of media
Oxford Word of the Year 2024 x Infinite Jest
My brain has been feeling really rotted, more and more so as the days get shorter, and it's been making me think a lot about Infinite Jest*, and how maybe the foretold deadly and ultimate entertainment does not kill over days but instead years and decades, is not euphoria but instead analgesic, and looks like, walks like, barks like any one of the endless-scroll algorithmized feeds that I've become become addicted to, gotten divorced from, and immediately have replaced with a somewhat different clone, over and over again**.
I fear I could waste the rest of my life away being opiated by vapid meaningless content if I let myself. Last night I watched this YouTube video in full, instead of going to bed when I had originally planned to. I enjoyed the video very much.
*for context, the book is about a movie that is the ultimate form of entertainment. It is so entertaining that if one ever sees it, they will no longer want to do anything else but watch the film repeatedly in a zombified state until they die of dehydration, starvation, etc.
**in my case, Tik Tok For You first, then Instagram reels, then Youtube and Twitter at the same time. Spotify, too, though it's a little different, but it's algorithm is equally insidious and so it deserves to catch a stray here for being so.
"Closer" by Ne-Yo x "Immaterial" by SOPHIE & "thicc" by Shygirl x "Reason Why" by SOPHIE*
I started learning how to DJ this past February, borrowing Jools's DDJ-FLX4** while they were in class. I built up a digital catalog of songs I thought were interesting and songs I would want to dance to, and as this archive grew and I became more aware of my taste, I realized a huge motivation in my DJing was to find and mix the Perfect Electronic Dance Pop Song. The search for this Perfect Electronic Dance Pop Song (PEDPS) has also helped me to define the PEDPS, a definition I'd like to share with you through discussing its constituent terms:
Song: We can all pretty much agree on the parameters this entails, right...
Perfect: Perfect, subjective to me, aka perfect to Alan, aaka perfect in Alanese.
Dance:Also subjective as it is descriptive of affect rather than of any quality of the work itself. All songs mentioned below do, in fact, make me want to dance.
Pop: This is the meat of it. The perfect pop song, to me, serves as an efficient vehicle or packaging of a single idea. Standard pop structure*** has been designed to do just this, with the idea existing in the chorus, the verses serving to contextualize and expand it, and the bridge serving to juxtapose it. And for Dance Pop this idea is usually found in rhythm or timbre of its central melody.
Electronic: Describes not the soundscape of the entire song, but instead just the quality of this central idea.
Take "Closer" by Ne-Yo, for example. To me, it's a perfect dance pop song, but it is not an electronic dance pop song, for although it has some electronic arrangement, its central idea is Ne-Yo's vocals at the chorus, the syncopation of those hits, and the purity of his vocal tone, how it cuts through everything else in the mix. There's a synth accompanying him, playing the same melody, but to me it's definitely in support of Ne-Yo's beautiful beautiful voice, and not the other way around.
Compare this to two PEDPS's, "Immaterial" by SOPHIE and "thicc" by Shygirl.
"Immaterial" is designed to best deliver that crazy synth stab in its chorus, and it does so with such immediacy. It shocks your system. "thicc" does the same with its synth passage, but with a delayed gratification. You hear the melody first by itself, then paired with the bass that falls as the melody climbs, and then, after a build-up, you get the fully realized idea, backed by drums. To me, every element of those songs, "Closer," "Immaterial," and "thicc," is perceived and ingested in relation to the extent to which it elevates the experience of the song's central idea or sound or rhythm.
When I first heard "Reason Why," the lead single off of SOPHIE's self-titled posthumous album, I was underwhelmed and unaffected. I found agreeing Twitter opinions that pointed me to an earlier leaked demo of the song.
Hearing how badly they botched the mix on "Reason Why's" official release was the spark that lead to all of my stupid pedantic thoughts on pop music. Listen to 0:55 of the demo and compare it to that of the official release. That precise, cutting bass****, what I deem the central experience of the song, that which the everything else is built to serve, is completely demolished in its final mix, wrapped in fire blanket, kicked out into the cold rain. It's just not there. Without its keystone, the rest of the song feels a bit directionless. It feels as though it doesn't have a reason to exist, because its reason to exist has been EQ-ed out.
Even after I got over "Reason Why," I continued to think about this structure of intent in a work: a structure in which all aspects of a work serve to best communicate one central idea or experience. For me—in Alanese—this is a better way to define "Pop." Rather than gauging any sort of general appeal or commercial viability, I'd like to think of Pop as a metric that measures the extent to which a work follows this structure. So I will.
In my past and current struggles to write screenplays for short films, I've described the process as like trying to write the perfect pop song. Independently, I've also told some of my friends, maybe even you, that I've come to believe that the best short films are set up to deliver one single moment. These have now become identical observations.
Another short film writing observation: I've been watching a lot of improv comedy game shows on dropout.tv this past year, and have heard the term "button" used to describe the final reveal of a joke or bit, the button being the final conclusion that the entire bit has lead up to. I had coffee with Pablo and told him that this concept of a "button" is what has been driving my short film writing, that I want to write a dramatic short that has a "button." All along it was just a yearn for Pop.
That's pretty much all I can think to say on that matter for now. Do you have any Perfect Electronic Dance Pop Songs*****? Send them to me! I'd love to hear them.
Thank you for reading Alantown. <3
*These are thoughts and feelings I thought and felt way back in September, following the release of "Reason Why," but have not written them down anywhere until now, because I've been too busy watching stuff like that YouTube video. Also yes, I realize this is four things and not a pairing. Sue me.
**Love you, Jools <3
***intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
****I stole this turn of phrase from a tweet. Too lazy to find it, but thank you, tweeter.
*****The "Electronic," "Dance," and I guess even the "Pop" are optional here. They just have to be Perfect.