In praise of the awfully unhip Don McGlashan.

As I was battling my way to work this morning, late, through sun and rain (at the same time), belting out whatever came on the unPod (I am a sing-alonger, always), the Muttonbirds' 'Giant Friend' popped up. You know what's delightful? How aggressively Don insists on singing in a Kiwi accent. Always. And you know it's a deliberate artistic decision, because the accent of a pop singer is always, by default, American. The Beatles changed all that for the UK, of course, but it's not as if every artist hailing from there uses their own provincial accent. And for us it's worse, because we have two layers of pop-culture colonialism, two layers of artifice to get through. Not only do we have to reject the default accent, we have to reject the British alternative (just listen to some NZ punk bands from the 70s, all glottal stops) too. It's really weird, and also liberating, to sing a song with all of our weird vowels. Dorky but true.

It's also liberating to not have Ice Cube's 'Put Your Ass Into It' come up on my Friday commute. I swear, 5000 songs on that machine, set to random, and every single Friday I'm there, driving and singing along with 'I've got dick for days, you've got ass for weeks!' I mean, I love that song, but what are the odds?