The Listening Club - 11th February 2018

Greetings folks,

Hope you're all doing fine. Definitely the time of year when my intros get even more repetitive than usual, as Amsterdam maintains its grey freezing exterior, and the weather forecast gleefully predicts more of the same for the forseeable. Le sigh.

Sadness abounds too at the news of the death (at 48!) of Icelandic composer Johann Johannson, best known, I guess, for his soundtracks for films such as Arrival & Theory Of Everything, but there's way more to him than that (check out "The Miners Hymns" and "IBM-1401 A User's Manual" for starters). Such a talented chap, he provided a welcome alternative to a lot of standard film music cliches and zimmer-isms, and will be very much missed...

Last week here on planet #LC, @ohmyliver was in fine form with his pick of the New York Shakespeare Festival's 1976 revival of Brecht & Weill's "The Threepenny Opera", which hit the spot with most of the assembled. Many thanks to him for the pick and for flippint the frisb across to @mrhig, who is right here with this week's intro...

"There are many good reasons why the subject matter of this week’s pick makes a lot of sense in today’s climate.

Like; with the erosion of norms regarding holding office, it’s no longer necessary to have any military service behind you, nor public service at any level, for any length of time, to attain the highest of offices, the leader of the free world. So expect him to be running in 2024, if not in 2020.

Like; he was there at the beginning of the real fake news, before the term was co-opted, repurposed, drained of all meaning. Fake news meant something (and that something wasn’t something good), and he was there as it catapulted in the mainstream, a bit player at least, if not in large part responsible for its propagation. News used to be beholden to standards and rigour; now it’s just about clicks, and a lot of it isn’t even real news.

Like; this whole thing started with the objectification and humiliation of women. Way before Incel, cucks, red pills; way before SJWs, before Gamergate, before doxing, before the alt reich; sorry, I mean Alt Right. Someone was Deplorable right from the start. Washington was built on a swamp; the unsteady house was built on foundations of sand; a global empire, the crossed Rubicon of how we talk to each other and what we believe, the endless litany of Snopesworthy bullshit pushed by your Aunt is all founded on not getting enough attention from the opposite sex. Who is hot and who is not? He’d show them. He’d show them all.

Like;
Like;
Like."

OK. Direct download is here, and the HearMySpoilers stream is below:


See you at 8pm GMT.