Sunday, November 12, 2006

El mondo no eschuara

I am kicking myself for missing 'El mondo no eschuara': the film Phil Collins made of Columbian people singing songs by The Smiths. It toured British art galleries in 2005.

He had kicked off the project by going to Bogata and inviting:
“the shy, the dissatisfied, the narcissistic, the shower super-stars and anyone wanting to be someone else for a night”
to come and record a karaoke version of a song from the album 'The world won't listen'.

He ended up getting a version of all 17 songs on the album, each sung by a different person. I managed to find a two minute sample of different parts of it, on You Tube: here it is:





As is usual with Phil Collins work it works as conceptual art: you can think about the ideas behind it, and why he chose to execute the ideas in the way he did. A project possible because of the globalisation of pop music and the English language, but worthwhile becasue of people's individual reaction to Morrissey's songs and appropriation of them as their own . But it also works without being art too, its moving and interesting to watch.

The Pretty Pretty thieves blog have a good review of a review of el mondo no eschuara/ the world won't listen, written by a Smiths fan.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very entertaining.:) I hope you are doing well.

James said...

I'm doing fine thank you cosmos, I haven't posted for a week cos I have been carrying a sketch book round with me instead of my laptop. I'm enjoying drawing and my rucksack is a lot lighter! I'll start blogging again next week

Anonymous said...

That sounds fun. What kind of drawing is it? Do you think you can post it here? :)

Anonymous said...

Hi! I'm glad you liked the review. It's a really enjoyable piece, and it's a shame the gallery shuts at 5pm so I was flung out before seeing the whole thing!

James said...

OK cosmos, I will draw a picture of the churchyard behind our office this lunchtime and see if I can get it scanned

James said...

Hi Helen, the bit I loved in your review was where you describe one of the Columbian karaoke singers carrying their baby whilst singing along to 'Stretch out and wait'. When morrissey asks 'is there any point in ever having children?' they provide the answer 'yes absolutely' instead of Morrissey's 'well I don't know'.

It just seems to embody the lyric from the same song ''amid concrete and clay, and general decay, nature will still find a way''. Which is as hopeful as the smiths get, and maybe as hopeful as we can realistically get ourselves.