Sensory Depravation

I've been a right slack sod on the blogging front the past few days. This has, in main, been due to the somewhat tropical conditions in merry England the past few days.

Noel Coward famously noted that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Well, Noel, only if I have to, as it has a tendency to drain me of any energy whatsoever. Such weather is all very nice if you can lay in your shorts on the sofa, listening to the Beatles with a large supply of cold beers at hand, but not so when you have to turn up to work in a badly-air conditioned office. Especially when going around in your bare feet, shirt buttons all undone is not approved of by management. Nazis!

All the same, it's given me the opportunity to sort out the contents of my MP3 player to get some more appropriate soundtracks on. A song like Bye Bye Pride by legendary Aussie outfit the Go-Betweens (of whom I need to write more about) is perfect, as is the likes of the Beach Boys or the late 80s XTC.

All of which reminds me that despite my disdain of faceless global companies that have no concern for the fate of humanity beyond their role as consumers of their goods, I do show a weird level of brand loyalty at times.

Principally, this is towards Sony. Since picking up one of the original Playstations back in 1999, I've stood by them since, resolutely refusing to even consider picking up a Xbox, even if they’re going for peanuts. I've also given my Japanese friends plenty of wedge for their music products – carrying a Walkman rather than an Ipod. I even sided with Sony Records in that case against George Michael*.

It’s the Walkman that’s got me writing this. It’s a fine piece of kit: I can get about 1000 songs on it, pick up FM radio and it’s even got a little microphone on it, which makes it very handy for quickly recording any musical ideas my band gets before their lost to the ether. Pretty sweet for £80 new.

It also has this weird little function called SenseMe™ Channels. What it does is read all the songs you've got saved on them and put them in the categories Extreme, Energetic, Relax, Upbeat, Mellow, Lounge, Emotional and Dance. How does it work, you ask? To quote two great men, I don’t know, but it does!

Or does it? Well, it can do: Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys both seem to fall under Dance, which makes some kind of sense. But then it also puts Snowman by XTC in there: a sad little acoustic number. Naturally, it’s all relative – you can dance to anything, I suppose, if you've got the right sense of timing.

That said, I struggle to see how Part Company by the Go-Betweens is Upbeat and Tonight The Streets Are Ours by Richard Hawley is Extreme. I also loved how Depressed Beyond Tablets by Half Man Half Biscuit came under Energetic, given it’s a song about being in such a bad mental state, you can pretty much do sod all (“the results of my life are a stream of nil-nils”).

Technology fail all round then, and proof needed that we still need obnoxious DJs yet. After all, you don't want to be tuned into Radio 4 at three in the morning, hoping for some relaxing tones only to have Bingo Master's Breakout by the Fall come screaming out.

*Only joshing, Georgie. And Father Figure is an ace song.