"Anomie"

Song Title: "Trip to Kalamazoo"

Artist: Jay Denham

Search Term: "Anomie" [This song is from the Anomie 12". Thanks to Tim for the search term.]

I apologize halfheartedly for all the times I miss a few consecutive days of posting on this blog. There are a few reasons behind these mini-hiatuses that pop up seemingly biweekly: Sometimes I am legitimately too busy. Sometimes I am dealing with a trough of depression that leaves me unable to write or answer e-mails or really do anything more constructive than staring helplessly at a sink full of dirty dishes or at a succession of NewsRadio DVD commentaries. Or sometimes, as in this case, the song I have picked as the subject of my next entry is so ignorable and average that I waste several days' worth of bloggin' time trying to think of something to say about it until I come up with a Webby-worthy editorial hook like devoting a paragraph to hanging a lantern on my own laziness.

Jay Denham is a Detroit techno artist who, based on the evidence, doesn't stray far from that electronic scene's reputation for repetition. He is also understandably fond of the name of Western Michigan city Kalamazoo. It is an extremely satisfying name to say, bursting up quickly from the throat, around the tongue, bouncing off the lips and back through the teeth. However, as a listener, hearing the name stated 62 times over the course of five minutes (I did count) in the absence of other lyrics does little to hold my attention, nor do the accompanying house beats, stacked with the competent-but-who-cares alignment of a pile of folded jeans on a Kohl's sale shelf. Unlike something like Codec & Flexor's terrific "Crazy Girls," whose crackling production is every bit as memorable as its emotionally removed vocals, I can't remember anything about this song when it's not actively thumping in my ears... apart from "Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo."