Monthly Archives: July 2015

Fetish Character

Mike explores audience, taste, morality, subjectivity, commodity, and so much more in a pastiche of readings from Theodor W. Adorno, Gawker, Taylor Swift’s Tumblr, Fashionista, Noisey, NME and Pitchfork.

The text of this episode of Reasonably Sound is entirely found. The sources are:

On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening By Theodor W. Adorno
Sacred Vows, Lies and Morphine: Nuns Detail Fight Against Katy Perry on Gawker
Retire the Taylor Swift Underdog Narrative Now on Defamer
Justin Beiber by Martha Stewart on Interview
How the Lyrics on Miranda Lambert’s ‘Platinum’ Predicted Her Divorce from Blake Shelton on Noisey
50,000 people sign petition to stop Kanye West from playing Pan Am Games closing ceremony on NME
Fake Rainbows, Hologram Jerrys, and the Sloppy Legacy of the Grateful Dead’s Final Shows on Pitchfork

KABOOM

Mike explores the sonic aspects of fireworks: What is an explosion, and why do they sound the way they do? These questions lead to a breakdown of combustion versus detonation; low explosives versus high explosives; the phrase “the boom is sort of like a pop with a diploma;” and a fascinating tangent about trying to learn card tricks in the ’90s.

Plus: The joys of taping a ref’s whistle to the hood of your car.

SOURCES
Celebrate the independence of your country by blowing up a small part of it.
SkunkBear on Fireworks
SkyLighter on the new Dragon’s Egg recipe
NOVA on the construction (incl Sound Charges) of Fireworks
A Fireworks Manual about sound I couldn’t buy if I wanted to, it seems

MUSIC
Intro/Outro: Explosion Alarm by Mark McGuire from A Young Person’s Guide to Mark McGuire
Break #1: Firework of Echoes by Motion Sickness of Time Travel from Slow Architecture
Break #2: Firework (Jump Smokers Remix) by Katy Perry and Jump Smokers from SoundCloud
Break #3: Whistle Tip (Remix) by Doo Bachary on YouTube