D01

Okay, let's try something new and different here.

As longtime readers (or even, to an extent, new ones) have realized, this blog is experiencing a midlife crisis. My work at Anthem consumes too much time for BBBD to be front and center in the way it used to be, and I've generally become disillusioned and dispassioned by the ease with which one can create and sustain a music blog.

The joy of discovery and in-depth investigation is what makes blogging so fun -- or at least what used to make it so exciting and alluring to me. When blogging is seen as some easy format for malleable and disposable marketing or promotion, though, creators need to take a step back and assess both where they are and where they want to be ... and wonder if the answer is consistent with what made them so happy to express themselves online in the first place.

I'm by no means wagging the finger at others here, nor am I suggesting everything morph into something "new." For me, though, the task of finding music and then disseminating it in a meaningful way has all but disappeared.

This, I believe, is due part to my apparent desire to look back upon musical tropes for "answers" and cohesion: everything I listen to today, I innately assume, is somehow rooted in the past and explained in the pages of compendiums and encyclopedias like The Trouser Press or New Wave Vol. 1. This is certainly not the case, and by no means the way I approach listening to music in the real and everyday world.

I also understand fully now that the brand that a blog represents and the inherent voice it has make the opinions and meaning within it blossom. There's no reason for me to call one artist out as crap and hail another when you all know essentially what my musical preferences are, for example. If you trust me, then you'll come back, eager for more tunes.

I feel as though I've taken advantage of the respect and merit that I've attained (what little of it I have attained is questionable) and feel the need to just ... share again.

So: lengthy introduction aside, I'm making a new series of posts. All of my future write-ups will be a part of this overarching series. In an effort to unearth, (re)discover, and better understand the music that surrounds us -- and surrounded us -- for every 25, 50, 75, or some arbitrary number of posts, I'm going to select one genre to deeply delve into (or as deeply as my self-imposed restrictions allow me to).

Since I'm feeling Hercules & Love Affair right now (keep an eye out for the Anthem video we produced with them) and everyone seems to be into disco of some variety, I'll begin with that (hence the "D"). I now present you Hercule. The Italo-disco artist recorded a couple tracks back in the late-1970s and that's essentially the extent to which we know him. "Little Green Man" is the b-side on the "Sunday Morning Fever" 12". It sounds like Plastics attempting a heavy, funky disco cut. Check it out below and buy the vinyl at Turntable Lab.

I've explained myself, so don't expect this again in the future. Lastly, I'll still randomly post films we produce for an added bit of exposure.

Hercule - Little Green Man