Word: affectlessness
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...albums are easy to love. This is not one of them. At first, The Runners Four is close to incomprehensible. Songs stop as soon as a hook seems to form; rhythms shift and cut like they're running for their lives. It's art rock, as evidenced by the affectless pronunciation of singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki, but when the mystery lifts and the melodies finally stick--and they do--the album has the undeniable power of complete originality...
...certain quarters, two events in 1987 brought the decade to a symbolic close. Warhol's death in February deprived the scene of its presiding elder, the white-wigged spirit of affectless salesmanship. The collapse of the stock market eight months later gradually squeezed off buyers. By the following August, Basquiat was dead as well. How will the future regard him and his brethren? "Dying young is the easy way out," says Longo. "It's much harder to keep your edge and keep it going." It pays to keep in mind something Zhou Enlai once said. On the bicentennial...
...that depends on your definition of shit. In the 60s and 70s, much New Yorker fiction had a sere, affectless style - embodied (or disembodied) by the stories of Donald Barthelme - that spoke to a narrow band of Manhattan intelligentsia. Playboy spread its net to include all forms of fiction, from Styron and Ken Kesey to the science fiction of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. Further, The New Yorker could intimidate readers into accepting its crabby tone, because the magazine knew best; it really was written for a certain kind of New Yorker. Playboy had to sell each story...
...album. Relatively is the key word here: he fits five, sometimes six chords into a single song, and (gasp) evinces a heartfelt concern for social issues. But the first track, a cover of What a Wonderful World, makes up for the general dearth of originality by wedding Joey's affectless vocal style and kick-butt guitar arrangements with Tin Pan Alley poetry and tunefulness. It's proof his comic instinct and exuberance stuck with...
...this--but a political campaign is not just a performance for people." "Let me explain to you, Al, how the private sector works." At such times, Bradley looks at the Vice President as if Gore had suddenly morphed into an overripe mackerel; Bradley's voice, normally so flat and affectless, drips with sarcasm and a condescension that borders on contempt. Because to Bradley, who really does see himself as a better class of politician, Gore is an opportunist driven by ambition instead of principle--the kind of candidate who will demand on Wednesday that his Pentagon leaders support gays...