A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.
My lack of shame took me to Wayne Walker, The Black Balloons (Weatherall and Tenniswood), Sugar, It's Immaterial, Timothy J. Fairplay and Parquet Courts.
The Oblique Saturdays collective came up with another set of eclectic, weird and wonderful suggestions: Leftfield and Toni Halliday (C); William Burroughs (Al G); The Streets (Mrs G); Courtney Barnett (Rol); Merle Haggard (Ernie); Culture (both The Swede and Chris Yardley); and XTC (John Medd and big apologies to Mr Medd whose Beatles suggestion I missed off the previous week's round up).
This week's Oblique Strategies card says this- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency.
Sometimes I turn the card over and wish Mr Eno and Mr Schmidt would be a bit less fucking oblique.
There are loads of songs about change, change as a force for personal or social improvement and about the possibilities of change. There are fewer about not changing.
Stasis is the act of staying the same, of not changing. In 2016 Pye Corner Audio released an album called Stasis and at the heart of Stasis was a track called...
Gloomy ambience, modular synth drones, a hammering kick drum and then chords that evoke 70s sci fi crossed with Kraftwerk and Moroder's futurism. Which is what Ghost Box, the label he released it on, were all about.
The word immaculate means only one thing in music- Madonna. In 1990 Madonna released The Immaculate Collection, her first greatest hits compilation, just at the peak of her Catholic Church baiting period, hence the title. She dedicated the album to The Pope, 'my divine inspiration'. This was apparently not a reference to John Paul II but to her brother Christoper, whose nickname was The Pope. I'm sure the confusion was intentional. The Catholic concept of the Immaculate Conception is that the Virgin Mary conceived without having sex, without the stain of the original sin of Adam and Eve.
Here's Keith Hudson with some righteous roots reggae...
The word Original takes us back to C's suggestion last week, Leftfield and Toni Halliday in 1995 and this superb piece of techno/ trip hop, a slow burning dubby odyssey...
Back to Madonna. The Immaculate Collection was a greatest hits package starting with Holiday and working its way through her 80s hits and ending with two then new songs- Justify My Love and Rescue Me. Justify My Love is a great song, based on that Funky Drummer/ Public Enemy drum sample with Madonna in imperious mode. I've posted it twice in the last year, once in its own right and once as part of a Funky Drummer celebration mix. All of the songs on The Immaculate Collection were reworked by Shep Pettibone using QSound (a processor that gave sound a 3 dimensional effect). Some had new intros or were shortened. Into The Groove, Like A Prayer and Express Yourself were totally different versions. Borderline was the album version, pure pop and utterly irrepressible.
Borderline was written because Madge's first album was a bit short. Songwriter Reggie Davis wrote it for her while she was flat sitting for Jean Michel Basquiat. As one does.
Feel free to drop your own responses to today's Oblique Strategy into the comment box- Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency.
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