Robyn’s Secret Passage

I just switched over and saw a bit of the New Zealand Music Awards. DJ Sir Vere came out to present a hip-hop award. His first words as he hit was podium were, “I’m Rick James, bitch.”

He then launched into a little rant about the criticisms that had been thrown at New Zealand hip-hop over the years, that people said they were “wannabe Americans.” He didn’t say that they weren’t wannabe Americans, but he concluded that New Zealand hip-hoppers now “own it” (I assume ‘it’ is the music industry, or similar).

The American accents in hip-hop topic is interesting. I’ve been thinking about it a bit lately.

Now, there used to be a time when anyone employed in broadcasting in New Zealand had to speak with a perfect BBC English accent. The New Zealand accent wasn’t considered good enough to be used to deliver the news. It was inferior and embarrassing

Of course, over the years we gradually realised that the New Zealand accent was actually quite cool and, well, was perfectly all right to use to deliver the news, to tell it like it is. Now when we see those old news bulletins, the BBC accent stands out and makes it seem like a bunch of Englishers had taken over New Zealand’s airwaves in the ’60s.

And this, I reckon, is a similar situation to what’s happening with accents in hip-hop.

Americans invented hip-hop. They started rapping with their own normal accents. So when hip-hop made it to New Zealand and New Zealanders started rapping, they based it on what they heard from America, so the music, the rhyming and the accents all sounded American.

Over the years New Zealand hip-hop has progressed so that there’s this unique Pacific hip-hip sound (looped beats, strummy guitar, like Sisters Underground’s “In the neighbourhood”, much of Nesian Mystik’s work); when lyrics mention AKs, it more likely to be Auckland than the all-but-invisible AK-47; but the American accent largely remains.

When Dark Tower rapped in their ordinary accents, it freaked people out. They seemed like a weird novelty act. American accents are still normal in New Zealand hip-hop. People can’t yet break away from that particular sound. The New Zealand accent isn’t commonly acceptable as an accent to rap in.

Back at the New Zealand Music Awards, Scribe has just accepted another award. His acceptance speech is spoken in a quiet, very New Zealand-sounding voice that’s in marked contrast to the snippet of his performance that had just been shown, with his loud, American-sounding performance persona.

But there are a few cracks in the system. In the UK the same criticisms have been thrown at UK rappers, but artists such as The Streets and Dizzy Rascal are doing really cool rapping in very English accents. They are making the way they talk cool on their own terms.

I have this idea that in the future - maybe it’ll take 20 years - eventually the New Zealand accent will seem normal to be used when rapping. We’ll look back at the MCs of the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s and chuckle at what will then seem like unsophisticated, almost embarrassing attempts at sounding American, the verbal equivalent of blackface.

But until that magical breakthrough in cultural pride and identity happens, the best thing we can do is to keep on supporting those MCs and DJs and the trucker-cap-wearing arseless booty girls that seem to pop up in every hip-hop video lately.

I realised that amid all the hoo-ha surrounding NZ Idol Michael Murphy’s debut single “So Damn Beautiful,” I hadn’t actually heard the song. So I popped along to my local purveyor of quality music and picked up a copy of the CD.

Evidence:

I listened to it a few times, and then realised that it wasn’t actually a bad song. Well, it’s not up there with such recent magnificent pop tunes as Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, Rachel Stevens’ “Sweet Dreams My LA Ex” or Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body”, but it’s not complete rubbish either.

“So damn beautiful” is about a guy who wants a picture of his girlfriend so he can remember her when she’s away (Where? The army? On the evening shift at Burger King?).

Thematically it reminds me a little of two top-five singles, The Who’s “Pictures of Lily” and The Vapors’ “Turning Japanese”, but both those songs were more about using the photos as masturbation aids, whereas I think “So damn beautiful” seems to be more about reaffirming the girl’s self-esteem.

She sounds like the kind of chick who doesn’t believe her boyfriend when he tells her that how beautiful she is, and probably doesn’t want her photo taken because she thinks she’s an ugly ho-dog. So the dude is determined to let her see how beautiful he finds her to be. Awww, isn’t that sweet? (Yes, it is.)

The mystery of life, and other hidden depths.

0.00 The song starts with a deep note that quickly fades up, reminiscent of REM’s “Star Me Kitten” or even Bongwater’s “Folk Song”. It’s a somewhat unconventional start for a pop song.

0.03 Some acoustic guitar and rhythm suddenly comes in along with some mid-90s-style guitar, like that in the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Rhinoceros” or Collective Soul’s “Shine”.

0.14 The vocals start, but sound a little muffled. Funnily enough, the pictures of Michael on the CD liner make him look like his mouth is a little swollen, like he’s had recent dental work. How peculiar that he starts out sounding like that too.

0.17 Whoa, suddenly things get a little bit exciting with both double-tracked vocals and a burst of fuzzy electric guitar. Excuse me. It’s time to put my bopping trousers on.

0.21 Some really satisfying cymbal crashes can be heard. Not many pop songs utilise the cymbal. It works here. Giz some treble.

0.24 Things get quiet again (Hey, loudness then quietness - just like the Pixies, or Nirvana).

0.28 Roll over Beethoven, etc. It’s loud and guitarry and double-tracked again!

0.32 It’s time for the bridge and it’s keeping that bad-boy rock vibe going quite nicely, thank you, Vicar.

0.36 At this point a slowly swelling string quartet can be heard bluntly underscoring the emotion of the bridge. There’s something that he wants to tell you, girl, and that violin means he’s serious, dammit.

0.44 “…for yooooooooou-ugh!”

0.45 Behold, the mighty chorus.

0.46 Behold, the American vowels: “I’m takin’ yur picha so I don’t forget cha.”

1.02 “You’re so damn beautiful,” he sings with absolute gusto.

1.06 The Pumpkins guitar is back and things get quieter. This time the title line is repeated, but in quiet, drawn-out tones: “You’re so-o da-amn beautifaaal”

1.16 Suddenly things get really quiet. Yes, that’s right - it’s an a capella bit. This is the special bit where anyone who dares to throw the “glorified karaoke” label at Michael can go and get stuffed. Unfortunately the lyrics showcased in this part are, “the mystery of life surrounds you,” which has to be one of the worst pop lyrics ever. Fortunately the a cappella bit makes up for the awful lyrics.

1.20 But the only a capella pop song to have any level of success in the pop charts was “Don’t Worry Be Happy” back in 1988, so the crunchy guitar (but not big and crunchy, because this is pop, not rock, and we don’t want to scare the grandmas) comes back to gently nudge (not kick) some arse.

1.27 Then it’s time for another quiet moment, but this time Michael is accompanied by a pretty, wistful bit of guitar, not unlike Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” or the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the bridge.”

1.31 The Pumpkiny guitar is back again, as are those double-tracked vocals.

1.35 And it’s time for the second bridge, again with the sincerer-than-thou string accompaniment. When he sings “I’m dying to have you right here” the “right here” part is magically harmonised with his own vocals, just to emphasise that he wants you right here, not some other place in the space-time continuum.

1.48 Behold, the mighty chorus, again.

1.51 Michael sings the line “so I don’t forget you” to sound like “so why don’t forget cha?” Why indeed?

1.59 The second part of this chorus has Michael doing his own backing vocals, and sounding very urgent and/or constipated in the process.

2.06 The chorus ends and suddenly things get very subdued: “You’re so damn beautifuuuuuu-uhl… Yes, you are.” This can only mean one thing: it’s time for the middle-eight. Yes, it is.

2.13 It’s more of the wistful guitar as Michael contemplates what it would be like, “if I were to lose you.”

2.29 Evoking the “Whoa-oh-oh” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “Don’t dream it, be it” or the “Hey, hey, hey. That’s what I say” from the Rolling Stone’s “Satisfaction, Michael sings that he only needs one one look “to get by-hi-hi-hi.”

2.34 It’s another semi-a capella moment, with the vocals sung over the top of quiet, strummed electric guitar. There’s a curious little Beach Boys quality to the close vocal harmony here.

2.39 Behold the mighty chorus, yet again.

2.55 The song goes up an octave! The crowd goes wild, etc. Jumping up an octave is an old pop production trick and is a cheap, cheesy trick at that. That probably make this the lowest point of the song, but actually, I think it may also be the highest point, too.

3.06 With the strings sounding very urgent and very, “weep, dammit,” Michael sings, “so I can re-me-em-baaa”

3.12 It’s the melancholic chorus end again: “Cos yur so damn beautifuuu-uhl”

3.22 With only quiet piano, like the Carpenter’s “We’ve only just begun” or John Lennon’s “Imagine”, Michael quietly asks, “So don’t you know how pretty you are?” It’s sung in a really sweet voice, but he puts a slight growl on “you”, as if to reassert his rock roots over his pop career.

3.34 It’s said that the perfect pop song is three minutes and 33 seconds long. This one raises a middle finger to convention and clocks in at one second over. How punk is that, huh?

Driving to the gym this morning, I had to suddenly brake to avoid a sign that was blowing across the road. As I got closer, I saw that it was promoting three Citizens and Ratepayers candidates standing in my local ward.

Ah yes. It’s local election candidate sign defacement time.

I’m expecting the usual to happen: the right-wing candidates signs get defaced or ripped down, while the left-wing candidates’ signs usually escape unharmed. But, of course, it’s always worth wondering who exactly is doing the vandalism. Is it lefties wanting to prevent the right-wing candidates from promoting themselves? Or are some conservative supporters getting out there and defacing their own signs in order to make the lefties look like crazy vandals?

As far as the mayoral candidates go, I noticed the following:

John Banks - His sign originally said John Banks with for mayor.com under it. Someone had attempted to deface the Banks/for mayor.com area, but had picked grey spray paint that seemed to blend in with the blue and red of the poster. Then, perhaps written in frustration, FUCK had been sprayed under John. This bit was on a white background, so it was much clearer. But the end result was like an angry eight-year-old who couldn’t come up with any better insult than “John FUCK”.

Dick Hubbard - Oh, that’s right. He doesn’t have any billboards. No, instead his name and a cartoon likeness of his face takes up a few shelves in every supermarket in this city. But as far as defacing goes, I recently binned an empty box of Hubbard’s cereal.

Christine Fletcher - Who cares about Christine Fletcher for mayor? Does anyone? Just to show how insignificant as a candidate she is this time around, her sign was defaced not by some angry anti-Fletcherite, but by some tagger who’d just scribbled his name at the top of her sign.

Oh, it’s just so hard to pick who to vote for.

I arrived at work today and people were like, “OMG, are you that Robyn.” Yes, I am. I’m the 18-year-old Kaaza-using, mp3-downloading boy who is the bane of Paul Ellis’ existence.

No, wait. I’m a 29-year-old non-illegal-mp3-downloading chick who is the subject of Paul Ellis’ misguided ire.

I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or just amused with the whole situation. I think at the moment I feel sorry for Paul Ellis for just getting it so wrong. I ended up receiving some legal advice today, but at the moment I’m just going to wait and see what develops.

In the meantime, there was a quiz evening at work tonight uniting the power and might of the captioning department with the night and power of the website dudes. My team, the Ho Dogz (yeah, guess who picked that name), came second (by a mere four points). I was lucky in that two of the guys on the team managed to ace most of the sports questions, the ones I was having to say “Uh, I dunno.” I did really well with the music (nerd!) and film and television questions (nerd!).

For the fruits of my labour (and the few rotten apples I threw in the barrel), I was rewarded with a Top of the Pops t-shirt. Awesome.