Talk:Windowlicker

French Girlfriend
Really? Ask anybody who speaks French as their native language and they will tell you that it means "I love making dog nuggets". French cannot be translated literally. If you were to translate the original quote word-for-word (Which is rarely ever an effective method to translate something) you would come up with "I love make some nuggets of dog". Notice how tense is ignored? Also, who the hell decided to input their own subjective opinion at the end? Let alone one that has no real rational basis. Ph33rspace (talk) 00:58, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

croquettes is a dog snack. '"Croquette" means dog treat, like a milk-bone, or those brown, bone-shaped cookies for dogs. ' in Canadian French when a dog bites you affectionately they say ''

According to Benoit Arsenault:

"I am a French-Canadian. And, in that sentence, 'croquette' does not seem to mean 'food' at all! In the French-Canadian, 'croquette' is mainly used with that meaning: a dog 'fait une croquette' when he bites you, but just a little bit, to show you his affection; not to hurt you. So, when the girl is saying 'J'aime faire des croquettes au chien,' that sounds like she likes to b

So a better translation may be: 'I love to make the food of love for dogs' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.197.127.230 (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Italics, quote marks
There was some question about whether the title of Windowlicker, the single, should have quote marks around it as does "Windowlicker", the individual song. I raised the question in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Music_standards. TUF-KAT responded that it makes sense to italicize the title when referring to the single as a unit (the collection of songs), and to put it in quotes when referring to the title track alone.

--LarryGilbert 20:11, 2004 Mar 1 (UTC)


 * I still wouldn't italicize it (whenever I see a italics, I immediately assume an album), but upon reflection, it's probably a good idea not to quote it if it's referring to the entire collection of tracks. You're right that we don't have a guideline for this as yet, we should discuss codifying at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums.  The way you have it now seems like the best compromise to me. --Lexor|Talk

Music video
It might be useful to include something about the Windowlicker video, which is just too 'king weird for words...I mean, does James really want to hang out with ugly hermaphrodites?! Lee M 21:42, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't particularly like Aphex Twin, but I think Richard D. James is a narcissist, meaning he is in love with himself. That's why he uses his face as a "logo" in all his videos. That's why he makes out with chicks who sport his face. - Ndrly 00:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Richard David James is NOT A NARCISSIST. The Reason in 3 of his music video's he puts his own face on the face of most charictars is because he is saying everybody is the same, and nothing is original.

Somebody put up the album cover image! - Insomniak

Can anyone say anything about the remix version of the song that the two men are playing in the car at the beginning of the video? It sounds incredible and would be worth noting if this version had been released. 70.89.177.158 (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

CONKERN65 •  Wins! Fatality!  • 10:52am •''' 00:00, 26 April 1992 (UTC)

Infrared image
I would they the images within the spectrogram of Track 2 is not a usual photography, but a infrared photo. I must say it's hard to determine if that image really is Richard D. James or someone else. --Abdull 5 July 2005 16:48 (UTC)
 * The picture is taken from the images associated with the Donkey Rhubarb EP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.123.242.175 (talk) 05:44, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not infrared. You can't take an infrared picture of sound because it isn't a physical object. You need to run it through a Spectrogram under certain settings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.138.243.215 (talk) 20:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

"the charts"
Would someone in the know please clarify what charts Windowlicker reached #16 in.

The official UK singles chart. It spend 3 weeks on the chart, and was Aphex Twin's biggest UK hit.

Formula
Err, so does anyone happen to know what the formula means, if anything?


 * I think it's just gobbldegook. For example, j is supposed to be an element of the set of complex numbers or maybe complex vectors with i elements... but this is an infinite set, so you can't sum over it, only integrate... plus j is used as a subscript, which usually indicates an index, which ought to be integer. I'm not a mathematician though so I could be wrong and just not understand the notation... doubt it though. --Russell E 06:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Some fellas on an Aphex Twin forum went to work on finding out what it was. One of 'em asked his mathematics teacher about it. The teacher said it was random bollocks. Later it was discovered that it is a line of code from a computer music program. It might have been csound or metasynth. Not sure. Wish I had a source for that, sorry.

Dead link
The link to the spectrogram of his face is dead. Remove it?


 * Probably. I made a really nice image of the face encoded in the song but it got deleted as a copyright violation ;-(. --Russell E 03:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Did you put any license tag on it? —Keenan Pepper 03:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sheesh, you could use an mp3 bootleg; I doubt spectrographic images of stolen music is a copyright violation. How could it be proven it wasn't from the actual cd? —Family Guy Guy 03:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * No, you couldn't use an MP3, because the spectrograph looks different. That's how MP3 works. It alters the spectrum to store the audio in less space. —Keenan Pepper 16:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks similar to my eyes! http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/9402/128kbitmp3.jpg Tomas9922 (talk) 11:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"Computer music" is not a genre
That's like saying "keyboard music" or "vocal music" is a genre. "Computer music" is any music created with computer software, which covers many different genres. It's an orthogonal classification. —Keenan Pepper 16:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * "When I first started with computer music, the only way to become really good was to learn programs inside and out, to be in control. So I always had that mentality. But if you get into software on the net with that mindset, you'll have a meltdown. It can take a year to get really good at one bit of software, so if you've got fifty programs, and they're all awesome, and you're obsessed with becoming an expert, that's really bad news. Knowing that there are so many interesting things only a search away — things that I'll never get to see — is quite frustrating." - Aphex Twin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.103.120.135 (talk • contribs).
 * Okay, cool quote, but it's not evidence that "computer music" is a genre. —Keenan Pepper 15:25, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It's proof that the person who made this music called it computer music when he was interviewed about it. Aphex Twin's background from the Windowlicker era is in electronic and computer music. Calling Windowlicker IDM is a distortion of reality. I know there was a discussion list called the IDM list and perhaps some of the forum members there prefer to classify every different Aphex Twin record as IDM, but that is their own third party invention. For someone wanting to know what kind of music is on this record, clicking on computer music is far more educational, enlightening, and encyclopaedic than the web forum IDM list's vanity IDM genre which bears no resemblance at all to Aphex Twin's music. Computer music and electronic music are the best names to put in the genre box of this article. Try reading some Aphex Twin interviews where you can read all about Aphex Twin and his adventures in the computer music genre, such as early adoption of native instruments softsynths, pro tools, csynth, metasynth, and so on and so forth. Two years after Windowlicker was released, Aphex Twin contributed a song called Perc#6 to the "Or Some Computer Music 1" compilation it is very similar in methodology to the Windowlicker ep. Enough said! Stop reverting. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.103.120.135 (talk • contribs).
 * Certainly it is computer music because it was made with computer software. No one's disupting that. The problem is that "computer music" categorizes it by the instrument used to create it, rather than its style. I don't care if you call it IDM or whatever as long as what appears in the "genre" field is actually a genre, rather than a method of production. —Keenan Pepper 14:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Demos/Japanese Imports
The page says now that there are two demos out (one on bleep, and a "different" one--I think that these subjects could definitely use some clarification. Another thing that's been eating me up is if the music played at the beginning of the video is released, and if it's the different demo, so these could definitely use some more sources. Replicate 02:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes! I'm trying to find out about the music at the very beginning of the video clip too, when the homies are driving. It is possible this isn't a mix of windowlicker but a different song... can anyone shed some light? sebiv 09:37, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
 * remix by luke vibert (no official release)

I was thinking it might be the Acid Remix of Windowlicker, but I have no evidence of that. 211.28.247.229 02:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Scratching track
Anyone knows the name of the scraching track that appears at the beginning of the WL video? XamiXiarus 21:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Article/album name
Are we sure the name of this record isn’t “Window Licker?” The cover says  APHEXTWIN , so the name of the album could be two words as well. Wiki Wikardo 08:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:WAP105CDR.jpg
Image:WAP105CDR.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 01:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Unedited Version
I have seen on last.fm that there is a version of the title song that goes for 14 minutes. But there is no reference to it here. Are we missing something or is it just last.fm mislabeling? 211.28.247.229 11:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not steganography
The article said that embedding the image in the spectrogram is steganography. While steganography requires embedding data within a cover text (which this track does) it also requires the intent of it to be hidden in the cryptographic sense. Since the artist intended the image to be seen by anyone that bothers then it clearly has no sense of cryptography.

Let me restate in another way. Cryptography uses math to encrypt data. Saying this track uses steganography is like calling "x+1" a cryptographic cipher because it is a math equation. Cburnett (talk) 23:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

"Formula" now presented as a real formula
I was bored, so I learnt myself a little TeX math markup and created the official title of track 2:

$$\Delta M_i^{-1}=-\partial\sum_{n=1}^N D_i[n]\left\lbrack\sum_{j\in C(i)}F_{ij}[n-1]+Fext_i[n^{-1}]\right\rbrack$$

Feel free to integrate within the WP article, if you like. I'm pretty sure it's all accurate, even though I have no idea what it's supposed to express. Maybe it's just Richard's way of saying that mathematics is too difficult for most of us to relate to. —Down10 TACO 10:30, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Any ideas as to what the symbol to the left of the first Σ is actually supposed to be? You have it as a partial derivative symbol, but the symbol as printed on the back cover doesn't really look anything like that. It looks more like a proportionality symbol (∝), but that doesn't make sense in an equation (although I may be mistaken in assuming that it's meant to make any sense at all).


 * The only other alternatives that occur to me are a highly stylised lowercase alpha (α) or a. Similarly, the n looks like it could be a lowercase eta (η) due to the long "tail". I'll stop there... I've probably already given more thought to this matter than it's worth! –CapitalLetterBeginning (talk) 15:19, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It's different in different places: https://imgur.com/a/5q2ze Note some have "Fji" and others "Fij". The M and α look like different fonts, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.58.154 (talk) 23:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Spike TV
I was watching 1000 Ways to die and afterwords there was a Spike Commercial using The begining bit from windowlicker. Shoud someone add this?

CONKERN65 •  Wins! Fatality!  • 18:38pm •''' 00:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Leaked version
About a year before the album came out an early version of the title track was leaked to the internet. No idea how I would begin to find sources to prove that tho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.131.138 (talk) 07:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

faire du lèche-vitrine
"The term is also an approximate English translation of the French term faire du lèche-vitrine (literally "do some window-licking"), a term used when looking for prostitutes" --The French term means 'window-shopping'. Collins-Robert has an example: "we wandered around looking in the shop windows : nous avons flâné en faisant du lèche-vitrine" 93.218.156.98 (talk) 15:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Windowlicker is actually an offensive slang term for people with learning difficulties, based on how severely disabled people often appear when passing by in buses. No mention of this is made in the article for some reason. --Ef80 (talk) 19:05, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Not prostitutes
I edited out the word "prostitutes", as they are quite obviously not prostitutes, as some sheltered cretin evidently thought. Batchuba (talk) 14:53, 9 July 2012 (UTC)