Genius loves Arcade Fire

I got a 32-gB iPod touch in September 2008. It is my third iPod, after a White 20 gB Classic and a Black 60 gB Video; the first was retired when it ran out of memory, the second when it ran out of coolness in the face of the newest touch machine. The new Touch was just so overwhelmingly cool looking that I was prepared to accept a cut in memory and be more mature in terms of exactly how ridiculously overloaded a music collection I absolutely needed to carry with me everywhere. It took a while to get over the nightmares of being caught suddenly in public needing the second Triffids album or a particular Depeche Mode track, or an obscure live Lambchop song from a free CD off a magazine cover, and having complete strangers scream at me ‘he couldn’t fit it on his iPod, the low-memory loser!’, but I managed it (with therapy, but not on my iPod, because 'Troublegum' wouldn’t fit).



I actually came very close to buying an iPhone last March, had even put down a deposit, before a newspaper article caused me to veer unexpectedly into buying a Nokia N95, for its better camera and much more besides; no regrets there at all. But then the new iPod touch came along, and it was everything the iPhone was without the bits I didn’t need, like the phone and camera.

So, I bought (direct from Apple on-line, saving a shocking amount, up to €100, compared to several major stores I checked prices in), and I love. It is shiny and sleek, like a miniature musical stealth bomber, and it does bloody everything. I know I will come back on future occasions to explain just what it does, and does so well but, for now, I just want to talk about Genius.

It has been said that a true genius is someone whose powers are just like magic, to such an extent that most of us couldn’t hope to match their abilities, no matter how hard we try – they are beyond mortal, unknowable and enigmatic. I am not sure if Apple’s Genius fits this description completely, but it certainly thinks it does, and so, I'm sure, does Steve Jobs.

The idea of Genius is simple: pick a song from your library and it will randomly select 25, 50 or 100 songs from those on your PC or iPod (you can do it on either) which it believes match it well, thus generating a random playlist of tracks linked by the ethereal threads only the Genius can see between them. Setting up Genius for the first time causes your PC to have a good think for a while, as it analyses your library, presumably tut-tutting at some of your less inspired choices, and going on-line to compare notes with others' libraries (it seems to do this every few weeks afterwards, as if to see if there is any new intelligence out there to help it in DJing your own private calamity of a music collection, or gazing wsitfully at other collections it regards as so so much better than yours). It then smugly announces that it is ready to take your best challenge and offer up its answers, like an ancient oracle.

I like Genius a lot; I like the non-quite-random randomness of it all, and the way it throws up songs you may never or rarely have listened to. With over 9,000 songs on my PC’s hard drive, I guess it can rummage deeply enough to find a few surprises for me. The biggest surprise, however, has been how much it loves Arcade Fire, despite there being only 2 CD’s worth of material (21 songs) on my PC. The evidence for this obsession is as follows, based on playlists Genius generated for several songs I have tried:

Apartment Story (The National) – 5 Arcade Fire songs out of 50
Blood (Tindersticks) – 4 out of 25
You are my sister (Antony and the Johnsons) - 3 out of 50
Munich (Editors) - 8 out of 50
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for (Nick Cave) – just one, Black Car, out of 50

What clues does this offer to how Genius works? It is clearly not working on simple tags like era (mixing 90s with 00s) or nationality. The songs are clearly linked by tone, however, and I am sure I would not find Arcade Fire songs appearing if I tried Genius out on Kylie Minogue or Madonna tracks (even if I had any, and much as it pains me to even type the names). Presumably, the songs are mainly linked by the fact that there are some/many others with broadly similar tastes to mine and, while we were drawn to the ecstatic reviews of Arcade Fire like moths (or should that be ex-goths?) to a flame, our libraries show our proud lineage, that which has made us the miserable bastards we are today.

One other act that Genius likes to taunt me with mysteriously is Big Country (of whom I have exactly four songs on my iPod, mainly out of fond memories to jumping up and down at college discos to the bombastic majesty of ‘East of Eden’); despite their representing less than 0.2% of my collection, one of the songs still ends up on just about every vaguely 80s-themed playlist I conjure up. Many of us will admit to our Arcade Fire fetish – exactly how many closet Big Country fans will put their hands up out there today?

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Actually, I give a f**k about an Oxford comma!

In one of the best songs on the self-titled debut album by Vampire Weekend, the song 'Oxford Comma' (hear it here) poses the age-old question of who actually cares deeply about the importance of the aforementioned grammatical element, or words to that effect.

I would like to timidly respond that, actually, I do care about the Oxford comma, while at the same time acknowledging clearly that I may be in a very very small minority indeed in this regard. I take a stand here for the lexicographers, grammarians and other custodians of the English language whose lives have not yet been enriched by the exuberant afropop of Vampire Weekend, but who I am fully sure would stand shoulder to shoulder with me if they had.



I am quite fond of (or, let's face it, pretty obsessed about) commas in general, and worry constantly about their endangered species status within today's society. The Oxford comma, then, is the most endangered of all, being the black sheep of the comma family, and a long-besieged member of that illustrious armoury of punctuational weapons (see the Wikipedia article here). Interesingly (and, yes, I know I must use the word 'interesting' cautiously here), it is also known as the Harvard or Serial comma; I am bemused as to why the US-college-bred band neglected their local university of high repute for its English antecedent (it even works fine if you switch the words and sing the song again - try it!) but I can see why the Serial option was not used, as it makes it sound like a grammatical element that routinely murders random sentences.

Anyway, the Oxford comma is used just before the final entry in a list of items, just before a conjunction like and or or; it is a sort of grammatical traffic cop, telling the reader when to pause and making sure the words and ideas don't pile up gruesomely. It is overkill to use it in a simple sentence list like 'A, B, C and D', but very handy where stuff which otherwise could wander all over the place needs to be kept in neat groups . For example, if I said that last year I enjoyed songs by 'Iron and Wine and She and Him' it is hard, in theory, to tell how many groups or individuals are involved, from two to four, whereas a carefully placed Oxford comma, as in 'Iron and Wine, and She and Him', to my mind, sorts it out easily.

As another example, consider a long and complex sentence like:

Vampire Weekend are clearly influenced, if mostly in a good way, by learning too much about military history, bus routes and architecture, listening to too much Paul Simon and afro-pop and reading too much highbrow literature and poetry.

Ouch, look at all those 'ands'. Now, remembering what the nuns beat in to me many years ago, which is that the function of the comma is to to give the reader a chance to pause and take a breath, lets try it again with two clear and helpful Oxford commas inserted, to minimise the risk of cardiac failure while reading the line.

Vampire Weekend are clearly influenced, if mostly in a good way, by learning too much about military history, bus routes, and architecture, listening to too much Paul Simon and afro-pop, and reading too much highbrow literature and poetry.

Much better? Well worth giving a f**k about?

All I can say is, thank God they haven't gone after the semi-colon (the more majestic cousin of the comma) yet; this summer's Guardian article here worried me enough as it was.

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