He Leaves Behind Him A Thousand Laughs

Nirvana “Everybody Loves The Clown” – No, this is not Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana, but the British psychedelic band from the ’60s. I think that the most amazing thing about this song is that it so perfectly captures the grotesque happiness and unintentional creepiness of clowns. It’s just a little too happy sounding, you know? The adult voice in the right speaker sounds sort of crazed, and the child’s voice sounds slightly detached, as if s/he were singing under duress. It’s a very unique combination of joyous pop and the mildly unnerving and vaguely sinister. (For Deric!)

Okay. Here’s a question for all of you who like to post comments: Do you think Andre 3000 realized how ridiculous, overindulgent and unnecessary the drum and bass cover of “My Favorite Things” on The Love Below was, but included it anyway because he has an agenda to push, or perhaps more perversely, he wanted to have a song on the record that would put off and confuse a lot of the audience? I think Eppy’s on to something here:

…Andre seems to have, on this album, done a nice job of solving the problem of audience and race that sent Prince spinning into the art-jazz abyss of late–albeit an abyss that’s well-deserved, since we’ll still be figuring out his 80’s output in 20 years, most likely. But from what I understand of the Prince mythos, he began rebelling against his almost universal pop appeal (exemplified, perhaps, by the lack of any bass in some of his best songs) by making what he perceived as “black” music, first with the Black album and now more or less continually with NEWS etc. But Andre has, I think, figured out a way around this, one that’s actually rooted in Outkast’s appeal: genre-hopping/melding. And one of the genres he’s aiming toward is Coltrane-y jazz, but if this album is any indication, he wants to fuck with it and mix it with other shit. And that’s not white or black but just musical. It’s interesting, anyway.

What do you think?