Tom’s Essay (2008)

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48 points·Tomte··6 comments

> My daughter also seems to have a knack for technology [...] Sometimes I will find her recreating Rihanna’s “Umbrella” song, track by track, on Garageband when she’s bored.

That’s a fun detail - the basic loop for Umbrella is in fact a slowed down default Garageband sample.

https://medium.com/micro-chop/rihannas-grammy-award-winning-...

If you want to listen to "Tom's Diner", here's a performance by Suzanne Vega (live, 1994; song starts at 1:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkYPge6ZKSQ

And the DNA remix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_2Vpz3fu-Q

I’ve loved Suzanne Vega’s music since I had her first album on cassette when I was about 13 years old. I finally got to see her live last year whe she toured her Solitude Standing album as a 30 year anniversary - she did the whole album and indeed opened with the A Capella Tom’s Diner.

It’s great to hear how she embraced other people’s versions - she totally understands the social aspects of ‘song’ and she’s not just ‘in it for the money’.

The Nick Batt from DNA mentioned in the article is Nick from sonicstate. He has a youtube channel where he does great reviews of all kinds of synth gear.

I hate the DNA cover simply because it omits the last few lines of the lyric... which provide key context to the rest of the song.

It’s a bit of a ramble but it’s an interesting look at how digital technology impacted an artist who had been focusing on making very analog work.

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