Category: Music

On Tuesday, over on Politiblog, Jared M. enumerated the ways Fred “Wimp Biscuit” Durst (whose personal site is not ihatefreddurst.com as you might expect) and Johnny “Boy Named Goo” Rzeznik schnucked up the Pink Floyd classic “Wish You Were Here” (scroll down–I linked to the lyrics for the whole album Wish You Were Here so you could get the feel for the whole album) for a tribute concert of some sort.

Here’s what I said in the comments for the post on Politblog:

The easiest way to wreck a good Pink Floyd song, or any song, is to make the personal political.

The best Pink Floyd songs conveyed personal experience. Think Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here (which, of course, contains “Wish You Were Here”, and The Wall.

Other, more self-consciously Save-The-World-By-Espousing-My-Whack-Job-Ideology work, notably The Final Cut, didn’t resonate because those works preached.

You can follow the trend in Roger Waters’ own work, where The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking tells a personal story of love loss and redemption, but Radio KAOS is some unlistenable parable and Amused to Death explains why the West, particularly America and Great Britain, are militaristic punks (don’t get me started on the contradictions in its messages).

David Gilmour, on the other hand, has his moments of protest, but his solo work and his Momentary Lapse of Reason and beyond Pink Floyd show that he knows that people connect best to personal messages within the music, not politics and preaching, and especially not hectoring.

So Durst and Goo have shown their tone-deafness to the reason “Wish You Were Here” resonated with listeners in the first place: it was a song from a narrator to a friend, not a manifesto.

Their update pays homage to a recognized and revered old song, but they’ve entirely missed why it’s recognized and reverered. They’ve tried to ride the coattails of the song, and the song just shrugged the jacket off, leaving them standing there with neither recognition nor reverence.

I just wanted to repost it here because:

1. It’s a long post, almost an essay.
2. I am too lazy to write essays on my own site tonight.
3. I figured some of my fans (one or two of the three or four) might have listened to Pink Floyd once or twice.

Consider it a manifesto to songwriters and poets everywhere. Get your message across by singing individual experiences to individuals, not by thumping your bleedin-heart-containin’ chest.

Since I know I am The Formerly Blue Haired Guy‘s source for Jewel information, I must point him to a revealing admission about her affinity for the long guns on Instapundit.

Easy, honey! I am doing it for Hans!

Quick! Someone stop that racoon, it’s stolen Cyndi Lauper’s song “I Drove All Night”!

Wait a minute! That’s not a racoon! It’s Celine Dion in her Vegas eye makeup!

Unfortunately, she doesn’t realize that song belongs to Cyndi Lauper.

Put down the song, Celine, and raise your five-octave voice out of the range of human hearing.

As some of you might know, I purchased the new album from Jewel Kilcher, 0304, when it came out three weeks ago. A member of my adoring public (which means if it ain’t you, it’s the other one) asked for a full review of it since I, after listening to it once or twice, gushed enough to convince him to buy it. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Let this be my apology.

Jewel’s got a new sound, as you have read elsewhere. Her other albums have been folksy, with her voice and subtle acoustic guitar giving her a subtle, breathy sexiness in her love songs (think “Morning Song”). When I first heard 0304, with its dance beats and a more confident sexuality in songs like “Leave the Light On”, “Sweet Temptation”, or “2 Become 1”, I thought, wow! It was something akin to seeing the little sister of your bestest buddy blossom from a cute kid into a woman.

Unfortunately, after a couple more listens, the song “Yes You Can” sticks in my head. The song’s a celebration of dance club/rave culture casual sex. Suddenly, it’s akin to seeing the little sister of your bestest buddy blossom from a cute kid into a woman who happens to be a prostitute. Ick.

Maybe prostitution’s a good analogy. After all, she’s changed her music and her image to target a demographic instead of trying to please her core audience with some expansion (Dr. Thomas to emergency, please; Dr. Thomas to emergency).

She’s sacrificed some of her other, more thoughtful songs about things aside from chasing members of the opposite sex. No “Hands”, no “Down So Long”, no “Who Will Save Your Soul” (her best song, period). The album changes pace (allowing listeners to recuperate for a minute and slam some ginseng and saw palmetto) with “America”, but I saw the same Songwrite-By-Numbers kit in K-Mart.

So I’m disappointed with the album, but it’s not all bad. Jewel can carry a playful dance number when she uses her manic voice. You know the one I am talking about. The less breathy (although still breathy), with clear, aggressive notes (“Who Will Save Your Soul” and “Hands”). When she tries to mesh her plaintive voice (“Adrian”) into the bubbles of notes and backbeat, it fails. Fortunately, she stays away from the bleats. After all, the albums all about coming together for a night, not breaking up badly.

I give it a two of four whatevers, and I am disappointed because I expect a little more from Jewel. I listened to Pieces of You over and over again, for crying out loud. I hope it’s only a departure, as do many of the reviewers on Amazon. I guess it will depend upon whether her new audience is bigger than her old audience.

UPDATE:

Items mentioned in this review

Maybe it’s not a good gamble to demand renegotiation on your recording contract, threaten to return to Australian serials, and hold your breath for more money since you’re a big star based on your 1998 album Left of the Middle and your two hits, “Torn” and “Wishing I Was There.”

It might be more of a bluff than you think, and if they call you on it, your career might be in real trouble.

All right, for the last time, let’s get this straight. Although it’s easy to confuse them, Extreme did the song “More Than Words“, which does, in fact, differ from the Alias song “More Than Words Can Say“.

Of course, anyone can confuse two sweet-sounding power ballads from late 80s hair bands. And Alias and Extreme, or was it Extreme and Alias? But remember, although Alias was truly a one-hit wonder, Extreme was a two-hit wonder. They also charted with “Hole Hearted” off of the same album (Extreme II: Pornograffitti) and made a valiant attempt to follow that album up with III Sides to Every Story (how clever!), but to no avail. “Hole Hearted” is the better of their two hits, in my opinion.

So keep it straight from now on. I don’t want to have to discuss this with you again.

The new album, 0304, from Jewel comes out tomorrow, June 3, 2003. I have a wallet with $16 in it all ready.

The first single, “Intuition”, sports a more techno sound than her previous works, but it’s still her sweet, breathy vocals. Innocent, playful, and yet suh-exy.

I have been a fan since Pieces Of You, which I gained after leading a friend on a trip to numerous record stores to find it on a winter evening. Finally, we found it, and we listened to it several times consecutively. I ordained myself Paladin of Jewel and have had to defend her honor, or at least her vocal talent, on many occasions. Of course, since she’s no Sarah Brightman (or Sarah McLachlan, for that matter), so it’s been easier to resort to righteous violence than to offer evidence to her vocal prowess, so I have had to smite many a man, woman, and schoolchild to preserve her rightful head of the pantheon of pop.

Here’s CNN’s take on her album: “Jewel: Sexy dance diva?” I hope I can sleep tonight, and that the anticipation will not keep me tossing, turning, and upsetting nestling cats.

And for those of you wondering, Jewel’s official score is MOT-MCBDFHM (Much of That, Minus a Couple Bags of Doritos For Her Munchies).

Far be it from me to step into Aimster’s territory (that is to say, blogging about music while wearing a snazzy bikini top that shows my smooth, albeit slightly convex, belly–normally I blog about other things while similarly attired), but Rob, I have got to tell you I am not buying the new album from Matchbox Twenty, or matchbox twenty, or Matchbox 20, or MaTcHbOx 20, or however your keyboard fluctuates this week. The album, More Than You Think You Are. More than I think I am? I don’t doubt it. I thought I was a music fan, but obviously I am your therapist, and I am not a good one, because we’re not making progress.

Rob, you have been coming to me for almost seven years now since Yourself or Someone Like You came out in 1996. On that album, we covered your bad relationships (“Push“), your lack of connection to reality (“Real World”, a wonderful exercise in free-association, don’t get me wrong), and apathy (“Hang“). I listened to that album and I really connected to you, man. I was 24 years old and enjoying some late adolescent angst as well. We were commensurating with experience, bub.

Four years later, in 2000, you came back and described a similar set of misery with Mad Season by matchbox twenty. Your relationships remained co-dependent or self-destructive (“Crutch“), your relationships had gone bad (“Rest Stop“) and you were in denial (“Angry“), which understandably led you to a sense that something’s not right (“Bent“) that you want to project to lunar cycles or something (“Mad Season“). Okay, I listened, and I felt bad for you.

But dude, it’s 2003. I haven’t bought your latest album, and I probably won’t. I mean, you’re telling me via the radio about your same old girl problems (“Disease“) and how that still makes you feel “Unwell“, but listen, Rob, I have grown up, gotten a job, and bought a house whose lawn I procrastinate mowing. I have a lovely wife and several cats to take care of. I cannot keep spending long nights in bars and coffeeshops listening to you mumble into your beer or caffe su da.

I mean, come on, life’s not so pathological as you make it out. Maybe if you revealed a more playful or optimistic side more frequently (remember “Smooth“?). I mean, yeah, it’s an existential world out there, but why not describe a sincere love ballad every once in a while. Even Trent Reznor, the Dark Lord of NIN, explained the depth of his love for his significant other in “Closer”. Why can’t you capture more of that spirit in your work?

That’s just what I am saying, man. Listen, I am going to finish up this Moosehead lager and then I am going to head out. You’ll be all right? Good. See you.

We at MfBJN vow to be the only media source, ever, to not play that stoopid Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow song “Picture.” I hear it on alternative stations. I hear it on country stations. I hear it as the bumper on AM news/talk stations.

This blog is your refuge. We will never play the song, but we deserve the right to mock it from time to time.

Thank you, that is almost all:

And yo, is Kid Rock balding, or what? Mullet + Hat = Balding!

Thank you, that is all.

Billboard reports that Sinead O’Connor is going to retire in July of 2003 so that she can pursue another career.

I thought the industry had made that decision for her some years ago.

(Thanks, Drudge. You’re my hero. But I had a hat first.)

In the song “Big Yellow Taxi”, the Counting Crows and Adam Duritz take on the burning issue of DDT usage in agriculture with the following verse, delivered as usual in Duritz’s thoughtful soul-voice:

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don’t care about spots on my apples,
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please

Wow. Talk about a timely protest lyric. About thirty years late since the EPA banned DDT for most uses in 1972.

So the fact that you cannot find spots on your apples, Adam, represents the fact that the apples in the produce section of the grocery store are sorted by their physical appeal, and the spotted apples end up in your canned apples and applesauce.

As a side benefit of your happy spotted apples, the world’s population explosion is being alleviated as malaria enjoys a resurgence.

In other news, I too will take a courageous stand. I am working on my protest song that tackles the controversial matter of burning witches at stake.

Lyric	Distilled	Source
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose	Freedom=Nothing Left to Lose	“Me and Bobby McGee” Janis Joplin
When you’ve got nothing/ you’ve got nothing to lose	Nothing=Nothing Left to Lose	“Like a Rolling Stone” Bob Dylan
Therefore	Freedom=Nothing

Don’t tell me about the fallacy of the undistributed middle, you whelp. I have been distributing middles since you were, well, a pre-whelp. Get offa my lawn!

Catholic leaders across the pond have finally banned pop songs from weddings, a step Lutherans seem to have taken already here stateside (at least in the church where I got married).

No word yet whether this includes power ballads, such as Motley Crue’s “Without You” or Firehouse’s “Love of a Lifetime”, music formerly used as filler material on hair rock albums until someone in 1986 discovered this pap would make radio music directors and audiences see a sensitive side to a band where one probably didn’t exist.

Also no word on whether this ban will be enforced at Milwaukee’s fabled Chapel of the Little Bells, home of the 20-minute-wedding-performed-by-a-guy-with-seventies-hair-flaps-over-the-ears-and-a-shiny-electric-blue-suit.

Perhaps in response to my assertion, the music industry asserts that its trouble is all a result of piracy.
As evidence, the music industry does not cite the trouble the software industry has found itself in from d00dz cracking video games from the 1980s to the years beyond their biologically-sanctioned adolescence, nor on businesses exceeding their licenses with Microsoft Office.

Of course, the software industry offers more than Sticky Bear Teaches the Alphabet and Street Sports Baseball, but that is merely coincidence (or lack of foresight), music industry insiders might assert.

So, I told Shawn, at least Avril is not half our age

I just turned thirty-one, and although I no longer smell post-college fresh, I am not a CBS viewer, either. So consider that throughout the rest of what follows: although I am an acolyte curmudgeon, I haven’t passed the physical yet, so this complaint is not the rambling of someone who chases the damn kids from his lawn. With that dash of pepper, I have some advice to Big Music: get those damn kids offa the charts.

“Doom, doom!” the music industry shrieks. CD sales in the year 2002 declined from the year before, which also declined from some idyllic moment when the music industry assumed its growth would continue, unfettered by reality, at ten percent a year. By 2102, CD sales would reach a dizzying 10,792,975,584,549 or so units, or 100 CDs a day for each person currently in the United States. However, Big Music’s plans have gone awry or amok, or maybe both, and the number of CDs sold has dropped.

Pop music, for one genre, is dying. Britney, Eminem, Christina, and Ludacris aren’t selling the albums they used to, and certainly not the number of albums their predecessors did. Rockers like Creed and Nickelback fell 8.7%. Alternative hype bands with soon-to-be-forgotten names didn’t ring the platinum bell enough times for Big Music’s taste. So Big Music keeps looking for the Next Big Thing, or more appropriately, the Next Young Thing. Therein lays its fallacy.

As I review the music news these days, I notice the artists keep getting younger, and not just relative to my advancing age. Avril Lavigne, the new Canadian big thing now that Alanis Morrisette has retired, is almost ready for college. Singers who hit the big time before drinking age were a novelty in previous decades–remember Tiffany and Debbie Gibson? In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Destiny’s Child, Brandy, Monica, Mya, Dru Hill, Tatyana Ali, Usher, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, 702, Samantha Mumba, Blaque, Aailyah, and Pink all charted hits at age 21 or younger.

As the average age of the top 40 singers has declined, so has their music’s content. Avril only worries about her sk8er boi and her high school consort’s preppy clothes. Destiny’s children want only satisfactory bed partners. Britney wants her baby to hit her with a big sloppy kiss one more time. Even Vitamin C is promising to be best friends forever after graduation, and she’s thirty years old, which is either a commentary on to whom you have to target your music to be heard or a commentary on public schooling.

I know pop music has always been weighted to the young, but contrast the current musical scene with the top 40 charts of the 1980s, when I was busy walking a mile to the school bus stop across the street. Huey Lewis and the News sang about working for a living. Bruce Springsteen feared for his job and his family. Dionne and her friends reveled in long-term friendships. Although the chart had its share of skirt chasing, the overall content tempered youthful exuberance with adult concerns.

Big Music should correct this oversight, this overhype of youth at the expense of providing music for those of us with mortgages but with disposable income. Without recognizing life after 25, Big Music will watch its pop and other CD sales decline as adults migrate to songs with adult content. One genre continues to address these concerns: country music’s sales increased 12% last year. I suspect Big Music doesn’t know why, but probably assumes a nineteen-year-old navel-baring singer could make next year the best yet.