i am partially pleased to report that Jonathan Granville's rather curious battle with Phil Collins seems to be at an end. with a lack of response and no hint of any sort of legal action from Genesis' 4th best drummer, Jonathan has declared some sort of victory, with Phil giving tacit concession that Jonathan is the better musician. this means, alas, that it is highly unlikely that we shall hear any more covers of the works of Phil Collins any time soon. "i am not f****** doing any more f****** Phil Collins songs, at least not whilst my arse faces south" was more or less what he had to say on the subject.
i know what you're asking. where to now for Jonathan? i mean, for an artist to declare themself to be better than Phil Collins is a moment that is hard to surpass. it's a bit like that time when Napoleon crowned himself, only with less swords and considerably less French people. as you might expect, with nowhere to go, for a considerable time (a couple of weeks), Jonathan went nowhere.
taking his cue from that time that Daniel Day Lewis went off to Italy or make shoes or something, Jonathan didn't go anywhere near Italy and certainly didn't make any shoes. in his semi-not retired from the music business state, Jonathan mostly cooked things in his house.
well, by mostly of course i mean "when he was hungry". did this satisfy his soul? did it help him fulfill his creative whims? probably. it certainly helped him ease his hunger, which is kind of like the same thing only involving food instead of music.
during this "cooking era" as it shall no doubt be called by me just then, Jonathan thought of many things, some of them relating to Norway, Norwegian things and his general feelings on just what exactly Norway is. for the most part, alas, he is not particularly enthusiastic about anything to do with Norway.
famously, of course, there was that incident when Jonathan referred to the entire Norwegian population as "shitbags", partially "for not being Finland" but mostly for allowing the release of the infamous Gods Of Thunder album, a record which for some reason pays homage to that band Kiss. this bothers a number of people i know, certainly, but most have been content simply to just avoid the album, opting not to go on a rather reckless campaign against a nation about it.
the general geography of Norway bothers him a great deal too. whereas he makes the arguably fair point that it's existence alone stops Sweden from being more cock-shaped than it is ("it should be the cock to Italy's boot", to entirely misquote Jonathan on the subject), it's his obsession with the idea that the Norwegian Sea should not be there that's rather troublesome.
according to Jonathan, or at least according to some interpretations i am prepared to make on what Jonathan has said about unrelated matters, if there was no Norway then there would not be a Norwegian Sea and there prbably would be a Swedish Sea. apparently a "Swedish Sea" is a much easier thing to sing a song about than a Norwegian one. i would not know, really.
on the subject of Norwegian related musical ventures, there is of course this.
i don't know quite how Jonathan got to the conclusion that the song Nowegian Wood is "anti-carpentry at heart, anti-society by nature", rather like how i am unaware if he even ever did reach such a conclusion. it's just best not to mention the song around him, i suppose.
i could go on and on about Jonathan's presumed dislike of Norwegian things, but i will not, for there is only so much tolerance legally he has for that kind of comment. this next picture, illustrating a selection of confectionary one could buy if they happened to be Norwegian and indeed in Norway, does show off all that he believes is wrong with the nation.
no. i don't really see what the issue is with the above. that Troika looks quite smart for a start, and the ones that end in "ox" look colourful enough.
so what's Jonathan doing about Norway? some interesting things, really. one of the more interesting, and certainly the most unexpected, was deciding to relaunch himself as a sort of quasi "Robert Palmer of the people", only without, one would presume, going through that thing where you make a "super group" out of all the people in Duran Duran with the surname Taylor.
another thing he's doing is tackling key moments in the catalogue of A-ha songs. for those of you who do not know, A-ha are a pretty fine, if not actually damned good, band from Norway. the three members of A-ha are Morten the singer, the one that isn't Morten that does the keyboards and the one that isn't Morten and doesn't do the keyboards.
early chart success, in particular in the UK with songs in English, did not, alas, translate as being masters of the English language. on their first tour of the UK, Morten sang and did not speak to the crowds, the one that isn't Morten and doesn't do the the keyboards just did whatever the hell it is he does and the one that isn't Morten that does the keyboards did all the talking. and by all the talking, i mean after each song he just said "OK, that was [name of song] now we do another" until they ran out of songs.
doing The Sun Always Shines On TV in itself didn't offend Jonathan as much as you might have thought, but when U2 covered it and called it Beautiful Day Mr Granville did stock up on popcorn anticipating some class news footage of either Morten or the one that isn't Morten and doesn't do the keyboards punching Bono right in the face in lieu of royalties. when that did not happen, well, it was unlikely that Norway was going to be any more popular with Jonathan than it was.
here, then, as much of a delayed response to the Beautiful Day incident as it is a comment to the people of Norway in general, is a rather excellent cover of an A-ha song by Jonathan for your listening pleasure. it really is fantastic, please click on it and give it a listen. it probably is as era defining as that time when Daniel Day Lewis gave up shoe making and went to star in Gangs Of New York.
i don't remember exactly which song is the next one Jonathan is going to cover, but you will be sure to be able to read about it here. if it made the cut, an interesting take on a NWA track is due.
thank you, Jonathan, for the great music and for not pursuing these posts through the judiciary.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment