Black Box Recorder

Some years ago I picked up an album by Black Box Recorder, a British synth-pop band. It was called The Facts of Life, and I enjoyed it a great deal for its cool, catchy rhythms and thinly-veiled metaphors (the opening track "The Art of Driving," is clearly about sex).

For years I had wanted to pick up another album by them, and I finally did, their next one, from 2003, called Passionoia. And again, it is full of catchy hooks and an emotionless cool that is so typically British. But I had to face something--I don't like electronic music.

Let me clarify that. If you break down pop music into two categories--those that use guitars and real drums, and those that don't, I go for the former. In a song on Passionoia called "Andrew Ridgely" (it starts with singer Sarah Nix speaking, "I never liked George Michael much, although they say he was the talented one") she proclaims, "I was brought up to the sound of the synthesizer, I learned to dance to the beat of electronic drums." Well okay, good for her, but not so much for me. Give me the slight imperfection of a drummer, and the squeal of guitars any day.

That being said, for a synth-pop band, Black Box Recorder were very good. Even though I was coming to this conclusion, I found myself humming their songs. Many of the songs have Nix speaking, such as the opener on Passionoia called "The School Song," a kind of update of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2," that features Nix reciting things a teacher says. I wasn't sure if this was mocking the educational system or embracing it. There's also a song called "The New Diana" that left me wondering, as she sings, "I want to be new Diana, lying on a yacht reading photo magazines." Now, this was after Diana's death, and it seems kind of snarky, but then other portions of the song refer to her work against landmines.

So, if I learned anything, it's that I will no longer try to make myself like electronic music. I've tried to like groups like LCD Soundsystem and Animal Collective, or even dance music such as Daft Punk. But I don't dance, I don't go to clubs, I don't use ecstasy. So, as Bob Seger sings, "I like that old fashioned rock and roll."