Okay, that's a gross overstatement. (Mostly.) But it's a tribute to
Doyle Bramhill that his version of
His
Latest Flame doesn't make me long for Elvis. It's that good,
as is
his
totally bluesy take on
Johnny
Nash's classic
I
Can See Clearly Now. Gotta love a guy who'll take those kind
of risks, and then make them pay off.
No, seriously. As much as MySpace is an amazing time sink, there are moments when it actually seems worthwhile. And in this case that value came in a feature I've grown to loathe: profiles with autoplaying music. Who's with me on this? Is there anything more annoying than to move from MS profile to Ms profile and get inundated with noise you really would rather avoid? But I digress.
'Cuz this was one occasion when I was stopped by what I heard. The song was Taking Life All Wrong, and it was just the kind of song I like: distinctive, strong on vocals and not overpowered by instrumentation, with something to say and yet willing to let me focus on the delivery as well as the message.
So thank you, random MSer. You don't make up for the hundreds of
grungy or overplayed pop tunes I've heard in my MySpace ramblings.
But it's a start.
Which makes me wonder why it is that every country singer has to sound
Southern, and why it bothers me so much when they do. And yet while
that makes me crazy about country, and not the good kind of crazy,
doesn't bother me at all when it
transmogrifies into bluegrass. Am I being irrational Or is it just
when it's done this well that the good outweighs the bad so much that
I can't complain? And believe me, I've tried. Lord, how I've tried.
So I was sitting on the couch, reading the
Television Without
Pity recap for Monday night's season premiere of
How I Met Your Mother. Which was silly, since I'd just
finished watching the episode. And it's not like there was a lot of
insight in the recap either. But there I was, reading somebody's
description of something I'd just seen, and I came across a mention of
Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and her Rilo Kiley hair. Which, not
knowing anything about Rio Kiley, led to a Google search.
Which got me to their website,
where I got to enjoy
Silver
Lining from their new album. And, well, here we are. And
that, kids, is how I met this band. Which will make more sense if
you're a fan of HIMYM, although it still won't be funny.
Maybe one day...
So when I discovered Maple Rabbit on the store, I wasn't
immediately suspicious as I listened to the first Top Song.
Interesting, I thought, in a goofy sort of way that went with the
album graphic. And I went to the second Top Song, which was
coincidentally right above the first in the album's tracks. And the
third was above that. And by the fifth, I realized there was a
pattern here. Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist, at least not usually.
But there's clearly something going on here that can't be explained by
random chance. I blame aliens. Or maybe Republicans, assuming the
two are mutually exclusive.
Which makes Easy a seasonal poster child of sorts. It's so
safe and unimaginative that even my parents would like it, assuming of
course they were still listening to Musak music. Me,
I'm looking forward to autumn and the chance to escape those blahs.
(It occurs to me that if I were awake enough, I could have written
this review in one word. And that word, in case you haven't already
guessed, would be blah. I mean, it's not like I'm being paid
by the word here. Or at all for that matter.)
You may think I'm overstating the case, but bear with me. Da
Vinci's Notebook is/was (they are no longer performing together)
a DC-based a cappella group that started by mixing straight covers and
comedy material and by this, their third album, had turned their back
on serious for good. Anyway, I was listening to Brontosaurus
in the car, a dangerous activity as it's hard to concentrate when
you're in hysterics. And then
that
track came on, the one that I knew I had to immortalize in
Farscape video clips. And so I did. And it was good. And I got
to watch it with a few hundred of my Scaper friends at a convention,
and listen to the laughter. And that was very good. Which led to one
female Scaper telling me later how much she enjoyed my
Enormous Penis.
Which, you'll admit, is not the sort of thing one can hear too often.
(Sometimes I'm ashamed of myself. Then I get over it.)
I'm not a big fan of what Disney has done to Broadway. I liked Beauty and the Beast, in a "don't expect much" kind of way. I was totally underwhelmed by The Lion King; I thought the innovative staging was undermined by mediocre music and a superficial story of talking animals. (Somehow talking cutlery didn't seem as ridiculous. Go figure.)
But High School Musical raised Lion King to high art by comparison. This story of incredibly attractive teens who resist being labeled as the best ever at one thing, because they want to be seen as the best ever at everything is, from my aged perspective, a terrible lesson for impressionable kids. (And adults for that matter.) As with every production aimed at kids, the adults are either morons or monomaniacal villains, and generally both. And kids manage to resolve all their differences and see the errors of their ways by the final curtain. If it weren't so relentlessly upbeat (and so completely divorced from any reality I've ever experienced or observed), it would depress the hell out of me.
Still, this isn't about art, and it isn't an Afterschool Special.
It's Disney doing what they do best and worst: creating a fantasy
world that's brighter and cheerier and far more desirable than reality
ever was. And making a couple of tons of money in the process. Oh,
and giving us the next generation of Britneys and Christinas. Anybody
want to take bets on which Musical star will be the first in
rehab?