THE BEST POST-BREXIT (SUMMER 2016) SONGS

SHE VOTED BREXIT, NOW SHE REGRETS IT...

Eyewear, the blog, loves to recommend new songs for you, our loyal and scattered readers, residing in various places across this wondrous globe. Erm, anyway, it has been a shit few weeks (again) in terms of the Year 2016 - a crap rubbish low year, which is killing more beloved celebrity musicians, film-makers, writers, boxers, actors, etc, than ever before.

Someone should call time on 2016 - can we vote again for 2015? Anyway, the musical year is top notch - I cannot recall when more major artists brought out new material in such proximity - and it keeps coming (Radiohead, Tegan and Sara, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Drake, Rihanna, etc).

Perversely, as always, these are not on the list below, which is actually simply songs that currently form what we in our office would call Earworm Brexitania.

These are songs we turn to, in this awful dire chaos of the sun, and listen to a lot, because they are cool, and we like them. The tracks below, in alphabetic order of artist, are not the best, the smartest, or the finest, works of popular music out there in the ethereal void NOW, maybe, but they arguably could be darn close to that , also... enjoy! All are on Spotify.

1. A$AP Ferg, Missy Elliott - 'Strive'
In this Post-Brexit climate, no song out at the moment is more haunting, with its refrain of "you're missing opportunities, I know you're rich in opportunities" - this is a beautiful, complex hip hop work.

2. Anohni - '4 Degrees'
If you wanted to be reminded that there is something more important than having rubbish plebiscites, here comes the most stunningly bleak, poignant and ironically-intense song in years. Sung with the sort of passionate operatic tones we associate with Philip Glass musical works, and shockingly claiming to want to see lots of helpless animals burning and gasping etc, as the world heats up, this is the ultimate global warming work. "I want to burn them, I want to burn them" is a great refrain - "I want to see the animals die in the trees" is the lyric of the year.

3. Blossoms - 'Getaway'
This British boy band type rock group has managed to compose a quick succession of pop tracks OF ULTIMATE catchiness. They have the melodic gifts of The Archies, with just the slightest edge of Bryan Adams. You could sneer for hours at how this is cheap artifice, but actually, let its shallow vibes indecently sweep you along. It is great within its remit.

4. Bob Mould - 'The End of Things'
No one on this list has superior indie-alt cred to Bob Mould. And no other song is more potently aligned to the mournful post-Brexit moment we find ourselves in. As driving, relentless, and effective as his best Hüsker Dü work.

5. Clarke:Hartnoll - 'Do-a-Bong'
The synth pop genius of Ex-Depeche Vince Clarke here aligns with the genius of part of Orbital, and manages to establish the zaniest, catchiest, dancefloor joy of the summer, in true acid-jazz retro style.

6. Fat White Family - 'Whitest Boy on the Beach'
No other band in this list so exemplifies, or skewers, the ugly underbelly of rancid White Britain - shall we call them the 52%? This band, political, superlatively arch, angry, and smart, is like mainlining Fad Gadget and Sex Pistols bootlegs. Perversely catchy, this weird song is such an attack on the privileged status of Leave UK and its stupid pomp (from low to high) it reeks of the age; and, better still, it borrows The Munsters surf rock tune.

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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