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Jolene slowed down to 33 rpm11/2/2022 ![]() ![]() To many ears this supposed trick effect reveals the mellifluous male voice to be the more natural sounding of the two. This decelerando reveals, complete with suggestive lyrics, an unaltered transition between the ‘Dolly Parton’ the public usually hears and the normally hidden voice, pitched a fourth lower. Pretender takes a leisurely tour of the intermediate areas of Ms. Additional layers of homosexual longing, convoluted ménages à trois and double identities are revealed in a vortex of androgyny as one switches, verse to verse, between the two standard playback speeds. In this transposed tempo ‘Jolene’ reveals the singer to be a handsome tenor. As many consumers have inadvertently discovered, especially since the reemergence of 12’ 45rpm records of which this present disc is a peculiar subset, it is not uncommon to find oneself playing 45rpm sides at the LP standard speed of 331/3. The first inklings of this story came from fans of Ms.Parton’s earlier hit single ‘Jolene’. Pretender (based on ‘The Great Pretender’ written by Buck Ram) features the opportunity for a dramatic gender change, suggesting a hypothesis concerning the singer, Ms.Parton, perhaps worthy of headlines in the National Enquirer. This is from Oswald’s liner notes on the Plunderphonics EP: Track 2 of the Plunderphonics EP is “Pretender,” in which Dolly Parton’s rendition of “The Great Pretender” is manipulated to sound more like a man’s voice. ![]() Tracks 1, 3, and 4 mess with Igor Stravinsky, Count Basie, and Elvis Presley, respectively. The Plunderphonics EP has four tracks, each of which aggressively reworks a famous bit of music. (Oswald generally avoided charging money for his reconstituted works in the hopes of avoiding copyright infringement suits, but also withdrew and destroyed existing stock in the face of legal challenges.) In 1989 he distributed the Plunderphonics EP with four tracks to media outlets and radio stations. Oswald was a self-proclaimed “Plunderphonic” who argued for the necessity of (basically) fucking with famous pieces of music. It’s unclear whether “goodlittlebuddy” knew this or not, but either way Oswald deserves some of the credit here. Not a lot of people discussing “Slow Ass Jolene” took the opportunity to credit John Oswald for the insight about “Jolene”-but Oswald realized the exact same thing as early as 1988 (to be fair, a sprinkling of YouTube users did make the connection). The main YouTube video, originally uploaded by YouTube user “goodlittlebuddy” in April 2012, has now been viewed 1.75 million times. Many, many listeners expressed astonishment that Dolly’s phrasing and even vibrato were so finely expressed that hardly any flaws showed up, even at such a slow speed. The premise was that if you played that single not at the correct 45-rpm speed but at the 33-rpm speed, a reduction of about 25%, the resultant version was quite startling, as if “a soulful male ballad singer” ( The New Yorker) were covering it (and, incidentally, fucking with the gender dynamics of the song). B-Dum B-Dum Sound (and “part funded by Bolton Arts Council”) a quick youtube suggest 45 was the right speed – I think I played at 33 first and just preferred it like that.Last month a slowed-down video of Dolly Parton’s classic song “Jolene” made the rounds on the Internet. ![]() Both had pretty sparse labelling with no mention of the intended RPMĮDIT – haha – just had another rummage – found the sleeve but for some reason not the disk – an Andy Farley album is hiding in there. The other was something french and bought around 2001. It sounded slowed down and good at 33 but it also sounded speeded up and good at 45. One was prob mid / late 90s and a distant relation of On-U sound – not on their label just shoved in the same rack because Skip MacDonald produced it – quite unusually packaged and almost seemed like it had resulted from some sort of arts funded or business start up scheme than a record label. No they were both real obscurities – bought on spec and I’ve never heard them played anywhere else which is why I’ve always been unsure of the correct speed. Non of the above – I certainly wouldn’t forget a Jack Dangers track – although Radio Babylon is nice slowed down. Hedging my bets on Radio Babylon by Meat Beat Manifesto and that Depth Charge EP that I can’t remember the name of! ![]()
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