Empty Bookshelf Reviews

The first in (maybe) a series of reviews. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Up first is one that definitely isn’t the best song ever, but lets me test my review format. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

Background
I came across Neutral Milk Hotel after reading that they had a 10.0 reviewed album with one of our nemeses, Pitchfork Media. (That’s darn near impossible). I checked out the album, and came across a song I had heard once before and had stuck with me reasonably well considering I had only heard it once. That brings us to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”

For

• Note the singing saw and the who cares if it’s out of tune trumpet. It does the whole “using non-traditional instruments” in an artistic, non-self-conscious-way. (see Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys).
• It’s in 6/8 (kind of rare for rock music [well, indie {the genre} music]).
• Evocative-ish lyrics “When we meet on a cloud, I’ll be laughing out loud” [internal rhyme for the win!]
• Everything seems right in the world as the verses begin after the controlled musical meanderings (0:40, 1:28). The return after the bridge (the bridge starting at 2:00) is especially epic. As a listener, you’re rooting for it to get to the “What beautiful face…” after the song seemingly deconstructs after the bridge. At 2:45, everything is where it needs to be.

Against

• Neutral Cheese Who?
• Odd instruments, intentionally sloppy singing and bass playing.
• Lyrically, there are some nice little onesies (see above), but there’s not much going on beyond that.
• Just plain too weird for most people.

While not a one and a half star song on its own merits, in the scale of whether it’s the best song ever, it really isn’t even a contender. It’s one-of-a-kind, but the weirdness-to-most-people inherent in making a song “one-of-a-kind” seals its fate on the “not the best song ever” side of the dividing line.

quick intro: Cinemax will be showing all six Star Wars movies in high definition starting in November. Being that this is the first time all six movies have been shown in HD, they’re making a big deal about it, and have a page setup with various promotional videos. The video in question is entitled, “Original Trilogy.” For lower quality, but faster viewing, watch it on YouTube. The video is also embedded in this page. As will become significant later in this review, the song in the video is Fix You by Coldplay. Note: the audio level is very, very low in this file, so turn your speakers up.

9 Bulleted Reasons Why This is Probably the Best Star Wars Promo Video Ever (and one reason why I say ‘probably’)

• Slow-motion makes everyone a good actor. Star Wars movies (old and new) were never known for their quality of their acting, but in slow motion, these are all Oscar-worthy performances. Notice at 0:41 when Natalie Portman’s character is about to cry: when I saw this in the theatre, there was laughing. And this was the buy-tickets-in-advance very first in the zip code midnight showing of the movie – in other words, people that drink the George Lucas Kool-Aid. But in slow motion… it gets ya.
• It doesn’t use the all-too familiar Star Wars music for once. We know the “Star Wars opening crawl song”, Darth Vader’s music, and those that truly believe can pick out Yoda’s and Leia’s themes as well as the sort of singles from the prequels. As long as I can remember, Star Wars promos have used this music – it’s common brand recognition, people. But these Cinemax folks, they did something blatantly obvious, yet something that no one had thought of. Just choose the most-overused trailer and commercial band ever, Coldplay!
• Surprisingly, Coldplay is not a bad choice. I’ve long held that Coldplay is more about the “sound” than the “song.” Of their random recordings and three major albums, they have about five really good songs among an unremarkable but perfectly solid collection of songs. The Cinemax people picked a good one, maybe the best one. Sure, picking this particular song isn’t exactly cutting edge for setting to video, but when was the last time Coldplay was set to non-contemporary images? We see new movie trailers, commercials, wrestling hype videos, and sports highlight packages out the wazoo (it doesn’t seem like people archive these type of videos, so no links), but already familiar images set to the music? — it works because as familiar as Coldplay is, this is a new way to present their style.
• The video takes advantage of the fact that everyone already knows what happens in the movies to focus on some of the smaller moments. For example: they show the targeting computer footage from the original movie (in slow motion, of course), then Luke is shown reacting immediately after he shoots the torpedoes into the Death Star (using the force as guidance instead of the computer). We all know what he did, what it looked like, and instead of focusing on the destruction, we see the moment of relief when he realized he just really did it. A quick, quiet moment in a movie seemingly lacking nuance like that. Then we see the real big explosion, but we don’t hear the sound effects.
• Finally, a Star Wars commercial that doesn’t focus on fight scenes and “THEN IT GOES BOOM” moments. It’s nice to see other aspects and moments of the movies highlighted…even if it takes slow motion to make them resonate. (disclaimer: I think I remember some love-ish related commercials to try to get women-folk interested in episodes 2 and 3, but those were as subtle in their appeals for women’s attention as the explosion-heavy commercials went after guys)
• Again, the scene selection is top quality. The fact that they show Luke coming across the dead bodies of his adoptive parents says a lot about the shot selection. Considering that their death is probably the second most forgotten plot point in all six movies (the first being all of episode 1), and it’s the reason that Luke left his home planet to inadvertently join the Rebellion, it’s nice to see it given proper treatment. And the slow motion certainly helps. Also, instead of showing Luke fighting Vader, or the more famous scene where Vader’s mask is removed, they’ve selected the shot of Luke struggling to drag a dying Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker at this point, I guess) to his shuttle to save him. This isn’t exactly what a beginner would pick from that sequence.
• Attention to detail: To movie enthusiasts, the Star Wars movies are known for their attention to detail in sets, sound design, and art direction . The video showcases one of the finer details that’s wholly unnecessary in The Empire Strikes Back, but adds something to the “cold, hard, computers” motif seen on the Imperial warships. At 1:28, we see Darth Vader kneel down as he is about to begin his long-distance conversation with the Emperor (who, I’ll point out, is not seen at all in this video, prequels or original movies). It’s a significant moment in the original movies because, after seeing Darth Vader as the ultimate bad guy in the first movie, he’s shown bowing down to someone who really must be bad (as you can imagine, there’s more significance there if you’ve never seen the prequels). This plot point actually isn’t the detail in question though; it’s the fact that the set designer chose to progressively illuminate a four-segment ring of light on Vader’s platform after he knelt down. All of this a considerable amount of work for the carpenters what with the fact that the lit platform was shown in all of two shots. Now, whether the people that worked on this video read that much into it, I don’t know, but at the minimum, it’s an interesting shot from one of the less prominent sequences in any of the movies.
• It makes the prequels look like movies that mesh with the originals. The fact that the old and new movies have almost completely different “looks” has been beaten to death, but the video merges the two styles into one organic universe (as it’s supposed to be between the trilogies). The Millenium Falcon taking off from the original movie followed by a ship from the prequels doing the same provides a connection to the big picture similarities between the movies. (Yes, I know the Millenium Falcon shot was from the Special Edition, but I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about that replacement.) Shots from the prequels are sparse, but well selected; there’s nothing there to remind you of the bad parts.
• The music of the song really matches the video well [note: I'm talking about the music, not the lyrics (see below)]. To be honest, this isn’t a challenging song to mesh with images; it starts slow and simply with vocals and an organ, then builds as layers are added to the soundscape with guitars, bass, drums, echo, reverb and other studio magic. The key is that the song has energy, even with a slow vocal part. Simply, good trailer music is too slow to regular dance to, and too fast to slow dance to. Like many Coldplay songs, this sits at that neither-here-nor-there perfect-for-trailers tempo.
• The lyrics are matched to shot selection too well. Someone at Cinemax said, “wouldn’t it be cute if when the lyrics say ‘I will fix you’, we show Chewbacca fixing C-3PO?” Unfortunately, no one said, “it would be, but that’s a stupid idea.” Though not exactly a metaphorical song, the lyrics can safely be called “evocative,” especially the “lights will guide you home” part. Pairing “when you try your best, but you don’t succeed” with Luke failing to lift his ship out of the swamp, again, is cute, but is ultimately an annoying choice. I’m not believer in the “power of lyrics,” but matching a video of someone trying and failing so literally with that phrase implies that the song is about a specific time when someone tried and failed, and without any sense of generality, that little phrase loses any poetic meaning. It would be like if a greeting card company began printing cards that said, “You’ll be my best friend until the end of time” because a gigantic meteor was on its way towards Earth in one week with a 100% chance of total destruction. The phrase loses any rhetorical weight it might have had because it’s addressing a very literal situation [I'll pause here to let that one sink in...]. This also goes for “stuck in reverse” while showing R2-D2 rolling away with his back to the camera. BUT, the shot of Obi-Wan smiling (in slow motion) when he’s decided to sacrifice himself to Vader to allow Luke to escape during the first “lights will guide you home” line (1:07) works perfectly, as does the focus on the targeting computer as the song reaches that point a second time (2:09). *Special gross comment: Being that the song does include the “and ignite your bones” lyric, I’ll say that with the movies offering three four different instances of burned bones (the Owen and Beru Lars invitation-only BBQ of the original movie, Anakin totally forgetting that Obi-Wan had the high ground in Episode 3, and Luke getting his hand ginsu’d off in The Empire Strikes Back and Vader Flambee at the end of Return of the Jedi)), I’m surprised they didn’t have thrown a few frames of those shots in the video at the (overly) appropriate times.

Too literal video to lyrics issues aside, this is the video which shows why people like these movies. Coincidentally, there’s no dialog, but there’s also very little action; it’s the characters and how they deal with their sneakers-too-large-for-their-feet problems and come out on top that pulls the people in, it’s the effortless attention to detail, it’s the entirely unreal yet very real world and characters created in the movies. Enough of my soapbox. It’s also really cool when the video shows the starfighter from the prequels (2:04) breaking off to blow stuff up, then immediately follows it with the point-of-view shot of the Luke entering the trench of the first Death Star with that same organic, rolling motion. Highest recommendation.

I guess I just don’t understand the point. U2 needed a single for their approximately fifth greatest hits collection. Rather than come up with a really good song themselves, they enlisted the help of a band that while good, just doesn’t seem like the right fit with U2: Green Day. Not that Green Day can’t play, but the two bands’ styles are just a little too different to mesh collectively, not unlike that time where about 16 different musicians got up onstage at the Grammys and butchered Lennon/McCartney’s “Across the Universe”. Paul’s probably rolling in his grave. “route involving thoughtful lyrics about the condition of the area, or people’s struggles, they decided that the second half of the song should consist of the phrase “The Saints are Coming”, repteated over and over and over again, in a musical phrase that has definitely been taken from somewhere that I can’t quite place. They chose to debut this song at the reopening of the Superdome, for the Saints-Falcons Monday night game a few weeks ago, and it works perfectly as an opening theme song for the football team during games. I can’t imagine, however, that this song is going to be remembered at all in even one year’s time, and that’s a shame considering that this is all that two of the most prolific bands of the last 15 years could come up with. It’s almost like they weren’t trying.

They could very well have been trying something new though. This could be the start of product placement within the music industry. Well, I guess that’s not new” but maybe actually using the songs on the radio to promote something. It would be like the Eagles writing a song about how great the Philadelphia Eagles are, to get them pumped up, or AC DC writing a song for the Chargers (HA!), or Bad Company writing a song called “Bad Company” and using it at Enron meetings (BA-ZING).

And isn’t Bono’s thing Africa , anyway? Why didn’t they use the power of song to put together a group to raise funds for Africa “. Oh wait” I forgot” Well, why didn’t they do it again? A world-renowned, self-appointed ambassador to a far-off and underprivileged continent can’t be taking time away from that to help another cause, especially one that’s been nigh on forgotten by most of the world ( You know you’re lost in your own logic when you can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not). I mean, you don’t see Brangelina Polie out there helping America ‘s homeless people, or fighting drug abuse, or all the millions of issues people here face every day. And that’s because they have character. They know that if they multi-task, not only do run the risk of reducing the importance of their cause, but they also reduce the importance of other, more useless celebrities. By doing double duty (I said Doody!… I guess that doesn’t work as well when typed out) when it comes to activism, you’re the one putting Rob Scheider out of a job. It’s on your head Bono.

What was I talking about? Oh, this dumb song. Like I said, it may be good for the football team, but call me cold; I don’t really care about the Saints. It was nice to see them play well, but not nice enough for me to listen to an awful song that could’ve been better.

One star for trying to bring some attention back to New Orleans , and making a song that they’ll be playing forever at Saints games. Minus four stars for making the rest of us listen to it, and possibly starting a trend of individually-made rock songs for a specific sports team. The last thing we need is a re-made version of “Benny and the Jets” about New York’s lesser football squad. We already have to deal with that annoying J-E-T-S cheer. That should be enough.

Let’s see if I can get out some reviews for once…

I’m not being profound when I say that success is a great way to turn the less successful against you. In the burgeoning field of critical criticism, this fact is no more obvious than with music critics. Movie critics are relatively high profile (notably Roger Ebert), and there is a variety of widely known names in the field (Gene Shallit, Peter Travers, Leonard Maltin, etc.) and almost never write “I could make a better movie than this, I’m just choosing not to” types of reviews. If anything, for a really awful movie, they’ll just say, “Anyone can’t write (successful) music, but think that they can. This isn’t where every music critic comes from, but it’s a heckuva lot easier to say, “I’m going to tour the country, and sell my CDs to all the free-thinking Zydeco-Blues-Jamband-Trip Hop-New Wave-fans out there” and think you really have a chance than saying “I’m going to be a movie star,” and actually believing your own hype.

But the weird thing is that with music (well, like movies, too), one doesn’t necessarily need to be particularly talented to get really far with a career in it, for some amount of time, at least. Obviously, the poppy-est of pop music is the ultimate example of this. We’re sort of in a dry spell for “bubblegum” pop at the moment, but it’ll come back…it always does. Nsync sold (capital “M”) Millions of records, made lots of money, achieved a huge amount of fame, and those people with musical dreams in the previous paragraph? Not so much. See the part above about success and the unsuccessful.

In Soviet Russia, band boys you!

See, I have nothing against NSync (or any of those groups). First (and what should be the most obvious), I’m not and I never was their target market. It’s not my money spent on their CDs, merchandise, etc. If I’m that offended by their existence, I can change the channel, the radio station, whatever implement of the mass media on which I’d see them. And second, in interviews, they seemed like perfectly friendly guys who had a lot of fun and realized they were really a product of the current time, and they’d be “done” when they needed to be “done.” (to be fair to the “haters,” the Backstreet Boys didn’t seem to have quite as much perspective/insight into their fleetingness). Second-and-a-half-ly, there’s something to be said for making somewhat listenable music that gets played on Top 40 radio: I can’t stand most of their catalog, but “Bye, bye, bye” is a darn good song, you’re just afraid to admit it.

And third (where the music critic thing comes in), no matter how “unmusical” they might’ve been, it really doesn’t matter. Someone would laugh out loud if anyone in Nsync said he was “living his dream of being a musician,” but if he said, “I’m living my dream of being famous,” well, you really can’t argue with that. Toward the end of their popularity, you could tell that their “handlers” thought they could gain more fans if they were involved (in some nebulous capacity) in the writing of their music (as opposed just the performance of it), but the writing was already on the wall for their genre of “pop” as “real” signer-songwriters like Avril Leveigne took the torch and were equally not the type of music someone like me would in the market for.

But did these boy band members have any talent? Easy answer: of course not, they sold millions of records because of the people pulling their strings. Not-so-easy answer: they sold millions of more than one record, and no matter how smart the people behind the scenes were, there were five guys that needed to keep a rather limited “schtick” interesting.

Justin Timberlake, undoubtedly the most musically successful of the former members, gets the worst rap. He was probably the most popular among the ladies during his days with Nsync and let’s not forget his white-boy-fro: plenty of reasons to hate the guy. Basically, he managed to turn a boy band career into a “leading man in music” type of trajectory with one CD, and his upcoming CD will cement his role even further. Of course, he won’t be able to shake the “boy band” thing, but there’s something to be said for people always being interested in your next CD, if only so they can complain about it loudly, inadvertently helping to promote it.

Which brings us to the actual center of this review, a seemingly innocuous review of one of the new singles on Justin Timberlake’s new CD. Once again, let me call out pitchfork media. Now, I’ve not heard the song in question, but the review of “My Love” is the issue. But wait, you say, “Dan, but the review got five out of five stars, and pitchfork media doesn’t like anything.” I say, “Look more closely.” Sure, it got five big stars, but look to see why. It certainly doesn’t have much to do with Justin Timberlake according to the writer. Timbaland produced the song, which as we know, in hip-hop means he did either a whole lot or a whole little. It would appear that Timbaland, for this song, did “a whole lot.” In fact, according to the review, it’d look like he did the whole darn thing. As if there’s no way that someone who was, *gasp* in a boy band (much less one of the most successful ever) could accomplish anything after that on his own merits after this. Stereotyping and generalizing all people bitter at boy bands’ success to be like pitchfork media, it’s weird that they’d be so invested in seeing him fail, and if no one heeds their (the holier-than-thou’s) warnings, then they need to explain away how the guy got successful (Timbaland supposedly writing the perfect song, etc. without any help from a former boy bander). I’m still not the target market for Justin Timberlake’s music, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to fail.

The Unfair Critical Treatment of Former Boy Band Members gets two stars due to the fact that it seems like some people just can’t get past the fact that someone who became successful doing something unfathomable to them (doing a good job lipsynching while dancing, mainly) could go on to something larger and somehow respectable outside of the realm of middle-school girls. Like I said, a lack of success breeds a bitterness towards the successful. The two stars come from the fact that there is plenty of insignificant music churned out by former boy band members that even I (who’s half taking the role of Devil’s Advocate in this) couldn’t defend.

This one may balloon to huge proportions again like the season 2 LOST review. That being said, I’m officially starting it on Friday August 18th… we’ll see how long it takes to finish.

One of the contestants on the show is named “Storm Large”. The one night after she performed, Tommy Lee said “I’d like to see more of you”, and she suggested an internet search. I did and this is what I got.

I’m not so much the fan of “reality TV”. Call me a TV snob, but I find the amount of manipulation in the genre to be completely too much. Manipulation of people to do certain things. Manipulation of actual events to make things look a certain way. Manipulation of audience emotions to make us feel empathetic or hateful. Certain people who are even more cynical than I am about such things might say that all of these manipulations are used in any sort of narrative/fiction work, and so therefore I shouldn’t be complaining, because nearly all of my favorite shows are fictional. The difference here is the illusion of reality that exists in the non-fiction genre. Shows like Laguna Beach, Survivor, Big Brother, and yes, even “The Real World”, all have producers influencing actions of characters, the editing of actions to portray people in a certain light, and of course the casting of people to fill certain roles on the show… because without an antagonist, there’s no drama, and without drama, there’s no point. And they manage it by making us believe that these are people without outside influence… as they really are.

Of course in competition reality shows, usually that antagonist comes in the form of a person who isn’t performing upto the standards set by the other competitors, but miraculously does not get voted off, with a much more solid competitor taking that bottom spot. Then there’s always a big “shock” when a popular contestant gets kicked off (once a year without fail), and somehow the one we all seem to hate stays on for another week, until finally they get shelved and we all rejoice.

Where am I going with this? I’m still gonna need another paragraph to get there. You see, I always hated American Idol. HATED it. Even when I was forced to live with it at work every single day of the week. That might’ve actually made me hate it more. The next January though, I was among a high concentration of people who wanted to watch the audition episodes. I knew where it was going to go. A slew of bad singers hoping to be the next William Hung were going to come on and be completely oblivious to their lack of talent and then be exploited to sell advertising space. AHH America! What I never realized though, was that these horrible singers were actually selling the remainder of the season. Sprinkled in with the talentless souls are a handful of people who are either gorgeous and good singers, or they’re unattractive but have overcome obstacles in order to be able to sing the way they do. And while you think they’re just telling you more about the person, they’re filling your head with sympathy or lust. And that’s where they hook you. The personalities. American Idol is a personality contest as much, if not more than it is a singing contest, with terribly bland arrangements, stiff contestants who are oftentimes “pitchy”, and don’t really know how to entertain a crowd for the most part. And product placement. Lots of product placement. Of course I fell into the trap, but I thought I was being anti-Idol by rooting for the completely awesome Bo Bice (still the best contestant they’ve ever had on the show). “The Man” still won though, because by being the provider of such “anti-Idol” material, they got me to watch it. CURSE THEM!

I realized that American Idol was like that terrible contestant who nobody seemed to dislike enough to get kicked off. It’s flashy, attractive and diverse/bland enough for EVERYBODY to like something about it. The problem is that it’s not good. But last year after Idol’s season ended I found a show on CBS that did everything that Idol did, nearly five times better, but nobody really knew about.

Rockstar: INXS was a talent competition to find a new lead singer for the band INXS, probably unknown to most people my age. The show had incredible production design, better camerawork, better direction, better judges, a much much better results show, a phenominal house band, better arrangements week after week, and at least six singers that probably could’ve won Idol. In fact, the top six contestants were so uniquely awesome that any one of them could’ve had a successful solo career had people actually watched the show. There was half-hour backstage episode every week that took a look at the personal interactions of the contestants, challenges and sort of rockstar-seminar things, and song selection/arrangement, which was a very interesting supplement, but got moved to VH1 because of bad ratings. Also, the show had Brooke Burke wearing conveniently revealing outfits. And it was all on during the summer, when nothing else is on. What more could you ask for?

Season 2 definitely has a different feel, and for good reason. The contestants are auditioning for a different band, a new band without any released material, and without a former lead singer. Called Supernova consists of Tommy Lee, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, and former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, who, like INXS in season one, serve as judge and executioner. I’m going to break this all down in good and bad as compared to last season.

First the good.
1. The judges are better than last year. Call me ignorant, but I never knew who INXS was, and I could never tell the band members apart when they were giving their comments to the singers. Not only does Supernova have members that stand out on their own, but are telegenic, and give really good advice much of the time. Of course Tommy Lee is gonna flirt with all the women, and there’s gonna be all sorts of innuendo, but there’s also genuinely constructive criticism.

2. The shows use of alternative media is staggering. They took the backstage show off the air, and put it where people who really would make the effort to watch it have the ability to watch it… the internet. The show’s website has a plethora of activites and information, including “mix-tape” tracklist of contestants, band members, and the houseband’s favorite songs, which you can then buy from MSN.com’s service. You also can vote for your favorite performer online, as well as by phone. During this week, viewers were actually able to vote which songs contestants would sing, from a list of four per singer.

3. No INXS songs. Even though it served all of its purposes in season 1, I couldn’t help but be a bit bored by performances of these songs, mostly because I didn’t know them. I understand that this was partially done so I could get to know them, and that people who once liked INXS would probably like them, but I didn’t. Because Supernova doesn’t have any previously recorded songs, the people in the bottom three pick which songs they’re going to sing for survival. I’m not exactly sure at what point they pick their songs or rehearse with the house band, but it always comes off great.

4. Zayra Alverez. This woman could easily go under the “Bad” column, but I’m gonna count her as “so bad it’s good”. She’s not bad in a William Hung way though. Zayra is what Bjork would be if she were a Latin music performer. She obviously never stood a chance of becoming the lead singer for this band, yet she somehow managed to escape elimination twice… I think because the band thought she’d make good TV, and they knew they’d kick her off eventually. Watch for yourself here. The best ones are Razorblade, and 8675-309. Trust me when I tell you that you have never seen anything on TV like it. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up in the air, but at the very least, it’s incredibly compelling TV.

5. The job to be won is a much more difficult one. Becoming the new lead singer for INXS is tough, no doubt. But you’ve already been given a blueprint and a catalogue of songs to work with. Here, not only will you be creating your own original sound and direction for the band, but the winner is also going to have to hold his own with these three incredibly charismatic musicians, something that INXS didn’t have. Thus the competition is harder and therefore makes for better TV.

The Bad
1. Brooke Burke. I really hate to say it, cause she’s freakin gorgeous, but she’s got no personality this year. Not that she was amazing last year, but she had some life to her. This year, it’s like she forgot how to read over the summer, then started learning again, just in time for the new season. Complete lack of energy, enthusiasm, and sincerity. Come back old Brooke.

2. “ROCKER”. I hate this word. I hate hate hate hate hate this word. I hate the fact that it supposedly stands for individuality and anti-authority, but has become both a stereotype and a tool of the man. When American Idol took it and used it as their own word…. exclusively using it to refer to two or three people, rather than calling them singers, it got to me. It reminds me of how the wrestler A.J. Styles in TNA has to be referred to at all times as “The Phenominal” A.J. styles. Or how wrestlers in WWE are ALWAYS referred to as “Superstars” and not wrestlers. Not only is it lumping all the singers into one stereotype, but they’re using the same word over and over again. I swear I heard the word “rocker” used 4 times in the first five minutes last week. Seriously, I know you’re trying to prove yourself as the anti-Idol, but get a damn thesaurus, and make the script sound a little more natural. Looking on the website, “Rockers” actually has a capital “R” because, obviously, it’s a proper noun.

3. The SAME songs. They have changed it up a bit, but for every “Zombie” by The Cranberries, there’s a “We are the Champions”. How many times must I hear “Creep”, or the four overplayed combined hits of Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin. Does Nirvana really deserve to have had eight performances of their songs? And if i have to hear Interstate Love Song, Bring Me to Life, or Cult of Personality one more time, I’m totally going to illegally download the Supernova CD instead of buying it. And I’ll convince all my friends to download it instead of buying it as well. That’ll show them. It’s just like stealing from them, but I deserve it for having to sit through repeats. Please, more songs like “Starman”, “One Headlight”, and “Helter Skelter”.

4. Tommy Lee acting like a sleazebag. I guess it’s hard for him not to, but come on. Grow up.

5. Dave hasn’t played guitar yet. Granted, there still four weeks to go I think, but it’s about time we see him show off his guitar chops and see if the singers can keep up.

6. Enough with the voting info. I understand the need to make it clear to the audience, but it’s way too much to give me the info 15 times in an hourlong show.

As far as contestants go, I’d say that last years group was stronger, but I can’t really remember anyone other than the top six. We’re still at seven right now, so I’m sure that with two more weeks of showing off and getting better, the top five could probably match last years top five. After all, I wasn’t the biggest fan of last years top two, instead liking 3rd-6th place a lot more. This year’s group is a little more hard-edge with the obligatory tatoos and piercings than last years was and that’s for good reason, because the band and its music is more that style. While Mig had last year’s breakout performance with this song, so far there have been at least two really memorable performances this one and this one, both by Ryan Star. His “smoldering intensity” might just be enough to get him to the finals, and as he’s due to sing an original song this week, we’ll see how far his skill set goes. Even if the top six aren’t better than last year, whoever makes the top three has the potential to surpass the IXS top three. It’s all a matter of whoever has the better single, which, in my opinion is why J.D. Fortune won last year.

What I’ve seen of this year’s Rockstar: Supernova show gets a 3.5 star rating by showing constant improvement, a willingness to be different, and the potential to give the band a really tough choice when it comes to the top three. If only Brooke Burke would be able to stop using the word “Rocker”.

Oh, those kids. Always at it. You guys really shouldn’t've.

So here we are at the first of what may be a few reviews of our first milestone, 100 reviews. Not only is this the first review of this milestone, but of what could be very many milestones. We here at the Bookshelf like the word “milestone“, and don’t believe in Thesauruses. So here we go, our first hundred in a nutshell.

The first actual review happened way back in October of 2005… remember that time before the Steelers won the superbowl, before “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” movie, before Dick Cheny accidentally shot his friend while hunting, and before Bristol, United Kingdom celebrated the 200th birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (actually April 9) by relighting the Clifton Suspension Bridge?

Dan’s first review was aimed at complaining about post-game hype surrounding an extremely long baseball game. Of course our readers probably care about boring Astros-Braves baseball games as much as they seemed to care about my terrible review of the dictionary. Even though that picture was good, it was nowhere near the five star quality of this image. I too tried my hand at reviewing food, but it was an utter failure. On the plus side, my review of the letter to the editor is one of my favorites, and my first review actually got eight comments, including this link. The few following that grilled chese review focused mostly on music, my opinion of “Good Night, and Good Luck”, a particular episode of Trading Spouses, and Dan’s opinion of My opinion of “Good Night, and Good Luck”. Dan also said that the Colbert report wouldn’t last, which seems to have been proven false.

October seemed to be us finding our footing.

November saw Dan’s Cleveland Trifecta, a diatribe against horses, a road that he liked, an episode of “Coach“, and his complaints about how much he aches, now that he’s an old man. I started the month strong with the Beth review, but struggled through the rest of it, with lame reviews like Thursday, a type of tooth”paste” that doesn’t work for me, and an insightful, yet completely unnecessary complaint about my nosebleeds. My FAO Schwarz review kinda made up for them, but the highlight of the month involved Dan and I sparring about how Christmas is coming earlier every year, and something about me being a time-traveling sheep.

November didn’t see much improvement over October, but the Christmas stuff was entertaining.

December got a bit better, even with a few less reviews. I busted out the old NES games, for a few reviews that I swear are not trying to copy off of XE, another personal favorite, Christmas Cards, Adam’s first review, Dan throwing the hate down on Pitchfork media, and a suprising amount of people commenting on Roger Ebert’s take on video games. The biggest advance in December was the pop-ins, that added added some clarity to our parentheses-obsessed-writing.

December was a highly engaging and entertaining month, even with only nine reviews.

2006 rolled around, and January saw Dan get political, review half of a book, not like warm winters a lot. I only contributed three of ten reviews that month, but all three of them were relatively alright, mostly because “Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego“, and “The Simpsons” after season 9 is so easy to complain about.

January’s topics fell off a little.

February, while being the shortest month, was also a monster for us, as far as number goes. A whopping twenty-one reviews. To be fair, 17 of them came in our envelope-pushing live superbowl reviews, the biggest stunt pulled in the history of reviewing anything and everything on a five star scale. The only other reviews of any substance were my Gauntlet Review of the Beatles albums, and Dan’s digging up of our one-issue underground high-school newspaper.

Despite the big stunt, and two good reviews, February was kinda lacking.

March just plain sucked. Four reviews total. One by me. Three mega-reviews by Dan.

April was slightly better, with another of my top five of my reviews, Legacy of the Wizard. The other four I would give an average of 3 stars to, but since there were only four during the month, that’s going to cancel out the Legacy of the Wizard bonus and take it down a half star.

For my money, May was our best month yet. Dan’s contribution was the lengthy three-part TV landscape review. I threw out quality stuff with my Songs for Silverman, and Degree Navigator reviews. The shorter American Dreamz and Davinci Code video game reviews were serviceable, but my immense LOST season 2 review tops everything.

June fell off a bit. Four reviews total. Split two and two. Mine were based on a ridiculous news story, and anger at other people for coincidentally coming up with the same ideas as me. Dan tried to put everything into perspective by seeing how well the entire history of human ingenuity and artistry stacked up in the interstellar community, and complained a little about how the national geography of roadways isn’t designed to suit his needs.

July was filled with the (I gotta admit my ignorance as to the relevance of this phrase… and wikipedia does nothing to help) Navel Gazing set. I was had for a few minutes by a Jimmy Kimmel hoax, and I thought the critics were a little too harsh on Shayamalan. Despite the mediocre numbers for the month, I’d give it a 3.5

This gives us a per-month average of 3 stars, which isn’t too shabby.

In my first ever review, I reviewed the concept of this website. I claimed that we wouldn’t be able to keep it fresh, that we’d run out of ideas, and that we wouldn’t be able to stay somewhat funny at least. I believe my exact quote was “It has the potential to provide hours of entertainment for readers, and shape their lives for years to come. However, the downside is that it could get old real soon, and provide us with nothing but an excuse not to get real jobs.”

Well, I think we’ve significantly proven wrong every single point that I just brought up. We have 29 categories, 19 subcategories, and even two sub-sub categories. We’re still writing about reasonably different things, and while we may have slacked on the funny in recent months, we still bring the ‘A’ game on occasion. As far as my quote goes, I’d be willing to bet that we’ve provided maybe a few hours of entertainment for a handful of people, which probably did nothing to shape their lives for even the near fututre. On the upside, it hasn’t gotten old, and we have gotten real-ish jobs.

For all of these reasons, I’m willing to up our star rating by half a star, over the average rating of 3. I’ve also realized that my method of calculating the rating might not be the best, so I’m gonna throw in another half star for a final rating of 4 stars out of five.

And for those of you playing along at home, yes, this technically is the 100th review and so therefore should be included. This review receives 3 stars for not having much to offer in the way of witty musings, and for having a faulty overall rating method, but for packing so many subjects and links into one review.

Longest. Title. Ever.

If only they could save the baseball team from utter anihilation.

I’ll try not to make this like Dan’s “Half-Inventing Stuff” review, even though there are some thematic similarities.

What spawned the idea for this topic was actually two events hat occurred in the past month, both of which involved people doing things that I had already done. Chances are that both of these events might turn into “Nate Stories”, and since I don’t believe in editing for content, other than adding to it, just be warned.

So I got a disturbing call a few weeks ago. Nothing’s wrong, and it wasn’t sickening or anything… just upsetting. You see, my sister was at a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. The fans (the few, the proud), the ones who don’t like to throw batteries that is, (although maybe if J.D. Drew was around), have started a sort of tradition over the past ten years. Groups of people would come and buy seats in the wide expanse of the Veteran’s stadium 700 level… that’s right, back when stadiums had 700 levels. Up there they found the space to spread out, dress up in costume, and display large signs usually featuring the group’s made-up name. This might sound a trifle confusing, so I’ll give you the most prominent example, and probably the one that started the fad. Randy Wolf had just made his MLB debut and a group of fans were looking to come out to support the first of the crop of minor league pitchers that would eventually be considered the saviors of the franchise. (Over the next 6 years, through the ranks came Brandon Duckworth, Brett Meyers, Gavin Floyd, and Cole Hammels. This was supposed to be the rotation of the future, but Duckworth was a minor bust and was shipped off to Texas or somewhere, never to be heard from again…. update, he just started pitching for the Royals I believe and didn’t do so well, and Floyd is back in the minors.) A group of fans looking to show support for Wolf showed up wearing wolf masks, with a huge sign that said “Wolf Pack“. Whenever Randy struck someone out they all did a dance in unison that kinda looks like the lawnmower-starting dance. Eventually other groups began to crop up. What else was there to keep you interested in the upper deck and following a losing team? There was the Duck Pond (for Duckworth), the (Vincente) Padilla Flotilla (a group of guys in sombreros with oars pretending they were in a boat. Whenever he got a strikeout they began to row), once there was (Pat) “Burrell’s Girls”, and the most recent high profile incident was two competing groups out to support backup catcher Sal Fasano… yes a backup catcher. The groups paint their faces to match his trademark moustache and call themselves, “Sal’s Pals” and “Fasano’s Pizanos”. Incidentally, Sal was apparently so overwhelmed with the cheering section that he once ordered them all pizzas.

What this has to do with anything is this: When my sister called me on the phone, she told me of the newest group of supporters, “Flash’s Friends” or something like that. The Flash that they speak of is the new closing pitcher, Tom Gordon. How do they get the Flash from that? Well, he’s nicknamed from the 1930s sci-fi serial character, Flash Gordon. But these “friends” didn’t realize that, or I guess they thought that nobody would get it if they dressed up like Flash Gordon and his friends, because they decided to take it one step even further and dress up like the superhero The Flash, and his other superhero friends. It would be enough for me to say it was stupid that there are two jumps in logic to get from The Flash to Tom Gordon, and that people who aren’t from the area probably wouldn’t understand…. but my major problem with this is that WE DID IT THREE YEARS AGO. There is video and photographic evidence (see above) that not only did we use this gimmick first, but we used it better.

The people in this group had really shoddy costumes, most of them partially storebought, and there were people in the group that weren’t even superheroes. So they did the costume thing poorly, the sign wasn’t as good as ours was… and they didn’t dance after strikeouts, but the biggest problem was that they didn’t think their plan through enough. In order for the pitcher that they were supporting to actually be involved in the game, the team would have to be winning by less than four runs going into the final inning… lucky for them it happened and he came in, but by that time, most of them were tired of standing around in their costumes, and were partly disrobed by the ninth inning anyway. When they finally got on TV, they just like a bunch of half dressed-hooligans, not following through with the bit.

So all of these things led me to being not as affected by it. I suppose that my main issue with this scenario is how it made us look in hindsight. Not only was that experience very important for us, sort of serving as the capstone achievement of my highschool friends buffoonery, but we were proud of both the fact that we were the first ones that we had ever heard of doing this, and the fact that we actually followed through with one of our hair-brained ideas… and were mentioned by the TV coverage as the “Fans of the Game”. This gimmick infringement would’ve definitely sullied the memory and sapped all of the originality from it.

As far as the second incident goes, a little more than a year ago, my friend Adam and I completed our senior video project. Capping off this twenty-six minute opus, was a perfect final sequence/shot, that when seen for the first time with the song that Adam had found, literally gave me chills (literally!), and made me want to watch it over and over and over. I knew that if nothing else in the entire thing worked, that this last part would win people over. You can see for yourself here… it’ll probably give you a better idea as to what I’m talking about. The song is by a group called Thirteen Senses, titled “Into the Fire”.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that song coming out of my TV a few months later, in the long-form ads for FX’s second season of “Rescue Me“, a show about firefighters. The song fit even more perfectly in that than it did in our project, mostly because of the lyrical contents talking about walking into the fire and such. Also, the ad came and went without much fanfare, and I’m sure that it won’t be remembered in years to come.

Just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine was asking me for names of songs that she might like, and I passed along this title. Little did I know that hours later I would hear the song used in a montage of Jim Carrey’s dramatic moments at the MTV movie awards, a show seen by millions of people per year, and aired about the same amount of times. I hastened to the internets to email my friend to say “THEY STOLE MY SONG!!!1!” The next day, I decided it wasn’t a big deal, and pretty much let the whole thing go…. until about two days after that. I came home late and decided to catcha replay of the season premiere of The 4400, a summer show on USA that that somehow was the most watched basic cable series of last year (or at least last summer?). It was two hours long and started at midnight, and by the end was half asleep, when suddenly, I hear familiar piano chords. Chords I’ve heard hundreds of times. I couldn’t believe it! They were pulling out the end-of-the-episode-montage, and using the song! I was impressed that they actually used the entire thing, and put it to good use, but it was probably the absolute strangest timing ever. Recently, I aslo found out that the song was used in the pilot of “Grey’s Anatomy”, a show that I’ve never watched, and probably never will, but is watched by millions and millions nonetheless. I guess I should just be glad they didn’t use it on American Idol

It reminds me of how way back in 2002-2003, the new Coldplay CD came out, and the WWE/F was the first that I had seen to use a little-known song called “Clocks” to do an absolutely great film/video montage about one of their wrestlers, and my olympic hero, Kurt Angle getting a very dangerous neck surgery and training to come back for the fans and for his family. Soon enough, the song was EVERYWHERE, including the trailer for the movie Peter Pan and a sound-alike version for the New Jersey travel bureau, mostly because they couldn’t afford the rights due to how much they suck. When I showed people the video, all impact was lost because the audience had no idea when this thing was made. The use of the song went from “complelety innovative and perfect”, to “completely trite, cliche, and therefore worthless”. The entire impression of how great the video was was tarnished by the fact that other people used the song after them, rendering it completely useless as any sort of art or entertainment. By that time people had gotten so sick of the song that they probably wouldn’t even watch it just because of the musical selection alone.

What I’m getting at is that now I’m put in this position. This song stands poised to be the next “Clocks”, used in every video that people can put it in, make its way to the radio and soon enough, be so engrained into our public consciousness that you wouldn’t ever want to hear it again. In the event that I would show this video to someone in way to be original, lame-o“. Without having done anything, the value of the piece is decreased tenfold. Sure, you can say “We made this before the song got popular, scuzz-wad”, but that’s like telling a jury to forget a court outburst that’s been stricken from the record via objection. You’ve already seen it, so there’s no letting it go.

You could make the case that every person/group that uses the song in the same manner from now on is just copying off of a set television precedent and therefore should be subject to the same criticisms that I’d get, but it doesn’t matter to them. The song is nowhere near its peak popularity, nor even into the public’s SUB-conscious, and neither do the companies/groups care. If they continue to use the song, what is people saying “that’s already been done before, dill-wad” going to do to them? They’re in a position where if it fits, go for it, because it’s not like the CSI audience is really going to stop watching or feel less inclined to see a Jerry Bruckheimer movie/show.

The people who would be watching my video would be people whom I know, or maybe people I just recently met, but in any case, probably people I want to impress, or at least show that I didn’t go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College. Having the most impressive part of the video be undermined because of a collective overexposure to the song is something that I would rather do without.

Of course, I could be totally overreacting, and in two years the song could be less remembered than Fastball‘s second single. I also suppose that I could always go back and change what song we used, but that would be like re-doing the end of “Return of the Jedi”, a whole lot of work for something that wouldn’t serve much of a purpose.

How does this relate back to the baseball game? Well, if these people/groups can use this song without knowing that I’d used it previously, and if these Flash’s friends can go dressed like superheroes, what’s to say that our attempt at 30 seconds of JumboTron fame hadn’t been tried before, and done better? What if we were inadvertantly copying off of some other group even though we didn’t know them, and had never seen what they’d done? That would just ruin the whole event for us, and the uniqueness of it.

Personally, I think we should fight these so-called “Flash’s Friends”, because three Frankensteins and a Spongebob are no match for teh Hulk, Superman, Flash, Wolverine, ummm.. Thor, and some girl with an exposed midriff.

Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something gets zero stars. It is somethig that will happen over and over in life, and it’s best just not to notice it. The problem is that it gets to you when you no longer can honestly take credit for an idea you had and did, even though there’s evidence you did it before the other person. Rather than feeling good about yourself that somebody else in a higher position than you thought of the same thing that you did, and feeling good about the fact that you’re “on the level”, you tend to feel like you’ve been devalued. The trick is to keep going and come up with something even newer because then you can just show that off to other people instead. Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something also makes us look inside of ourselves to determine whether we at any point were guilty of this, and if so make the necessary reparations to those we offended. I encourage all of you to think about this and what it means to you. Until then, Goodnight, and Good Luck, and take care of yourselves, and each other. I’m Andy Rooney… Jon?

Obviously, at year’s end the opinion-based media puts out best of/worst of collections to (again, obviously) serve as “year-in-review” without going month-by-month, the same way that respected publications don’t review albums track-by-track, instead covering the highlights of the “grand scheme” of the album, then investigating the highlights of particular tracks. Pitchfork Media, which is one of the leading internet-based music sites is known for their devotion to “indie” music, though they do review non-indie music, specifically higher profile hip-hop/rap albums. To get a feel for their editorial slant, the best comparison is that the way that Spin seems “indier” than Rolling Stone, Pitchfork Media is just as “indier” to Spin. In fact, Pitch Fork Media sometimes makes even Spin seem like Tiger Beat (to keep the magazine theme going). To get an impression of Pitchfork’s expecations, Weezer’s most recent album, was given a 0.4 out of 10. Weezer never really spent much time as an “indie” band, as “The Sweater Song” and “Say it Ain’t So” were rather successful singles from their debut album, but their other albums have been reviewed in less than a favorable light, and needless to say 0.4 out of 10 is the type of review you’d give to a band that has carnal knowledge of one’s mother, especially considering how much other music came out in 2005 that they didn’t even bother to review. For those of you concerned about bias showing up in my review, don’t fret; I didn’t like the most recent Weezer album either, but it wasn’t 0.4 out of 10 bad, more like 5.5 or 6. Keeping in mind that if I were to give them a 0.4, I can’t imagine to what degree my personal reviewing index would be messed up if I had to somehow figure out what I’d give a Scott Stapp CD. With such strong opinions, they’ve developed some “haters.” Tuning Fork is a blog which (supposedly) reviews Pitch Fork’s reviews, and Sub Pop made a parody site entitled Popdork News. Enough about Pitch Fork Media. They gathered lists of the top 50 albums and singles of the year, and I’m going to review their top picks.

A likely pitchforkmedia.com reader.

First and foremost, this review will be of both the top picks together. That way, it’s a bit more than just reviewing the top album and single, it also leaves room for nitpicking of the pitchfork folks, though honestly, I’ll focus on the music, as the musically pretentious are usually critic-proof, if not critics themselves.

As the top album selected, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois is quite the challenging pick, if only because The White Stripes released an album in 2005 and music critics love The White Stripes. In full disclosure, I had previously heard two songs from from the record on the radio, but I didn’t actually realize they were from this record, so I was pleasantly surprised that once I tracked down the album, I could finally place the songs that had wondered about months prior. Well, the album itself is quite a collection. Mr. Stevens apparently has designs to make an album about each of the 50 states, but he’s in his 20′s and only has Michigan and Illinois to show for it in three years. That doesn’t change the quality of the music, but unless he ramps up his output, he’s going to be one of the busiest 140 year-olds I’ll have heard of.

The album which, as the title suggests, involves the state of Abraham Lincoln and covers all sorts of Illinois-centered topics, including such random topics as Casimir Pulaski Day. I’m not reading between the lines: track 10 is titled “Casimir Pulaski Day.” In terms of whether or not the album meets the stringent requirements of Pitchfork Media? Let’s investigate.

• singer-songwriter vibe? — check
• bizarre instrumentation? –check
• simultaneously straight-forward and “deep” lyrics? — check
• a bit off-putting on the first listen-thru? — check

Moving away from those categories, in all seriousness, it’s a particularly solid album. Most every song is memorable, and none sound alike yet aren’t out of place. The highlights, Track 1: “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland Illinois,” Track 3: “Come on! Feel the Illinoise!,” and Track 9: “Chicago.” Whether or not it’s fair to be called “The Best Album of 2005″ is not something I’m prepared to answer. Music critics live ina weird world where they seemingly are only interested in current music. Reviews aren’t released for albums that came out months ago and were missed; that’d show that the critics weren’t on top of things, and they lose “indie rock cred.” Needless to say, they listen to a lot of music in a calendar year, so being that I probably haven’t heard much of it, I’ll reserve judgement. Being that I’m not a music critic and have the luxury of seemingly have “older” music be my “new” music, I’ll say that “Give Up” by The Postal Service was probably my favorite album new to me in in 2005, though it came out in 2003. All of that in mind, I’d consider “Illinois” to potentially be a fair pick for 2005 once I have enough hindsight working for me.

Pitchfork’s top single was a bit less agreeable to me. They picked “Hope There’s Someone” by Antony and the Johnsons. Nothing like (what I assume to be) a big sweaty white guy plaintively singing love songs like a big sweaty black woman. I’ll mention that his schtick is of the variety that “those that get it love it, and those that don’t get it never will.” Oh, I get it, and it stinks. People that can’t stand sardines aren’t “not getting it;” they’re just more sensitive to crap. To be fair, I’m talking only of the single, “Hope There’s Someone,” I’m not sure of the whole of the album, but Pitchfork didn’t pick it as its #1. The song itself…well, I’ll let the opening lyrics speak for its “message”…

Hope there’s someone
Who’ll take care of me
When I die, will I go

Hope there’s someone
Who’ll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I’m tired

Now, let it be said that there’s nothing wrong with those words, in fact, if I didn’t have to keep up my tough-guy persona, I’d even call them “nice.” But, are they, as a Pitchfork writer called them part of a “quiet, unself-conscious elegy for that long-lost bohemia, which was eventually decimated by AIDS, drugs, gentrification, and, perhaps, its own success” No thank you.

Musically, you’d like listening to Antony‘s singing if you’re intrigued by someone singing just like Aaron Neville, but in the Alto range instead of the Soprano. Strike One. You say you also liked to listen to that guy in highschool who’d sit and the piano with the knowledge of three chords and that banging the keys makes everything more dramatic. Strike Two. Being that this is Canadian Baseball, the song’s out.

Pitchfork Media’s Top Album and Top Single of 2005 receives three stars due to their insistence on keeping up their “indie rock cred” no matter what the cost. Of course, their top 10 singles were all over the place in terms of the whole indie rock thing (though “Since You Been Gone” does deserve a place on the list), but there’s nothing wrong with expanding horizons, at least temporarily. The top album was a great choice, but their top single fits the stereotypes just too well.

Caution: This cover contains no less than four lies.

Just a few more hours
and I`ll be right home to you
I think I hear them callin
Oh Beth what can I do
Beth what can I do

“Beth” was KISS’s first and, most likely, only top ten hit; originally a b-side from their 1976 album Destroyer, released on the flip side of “Detroit Rock City”. Written primarily by drummer Peter Criss, “Beth” has the dual distinctions of being the only song other than “Rock and Roll All Night (And Party Ev-er-y Day)” to still get radio airplay on rock formatted stations (seemingly played “Ev-er-y” day by area station WZZO), as well as probably the wussiest rock single ever to be certified gold. While most of segments at KISS concerts involve loud, hard rocking; over-the-top makeup and costumes; seizure-inducing lighting schemes; guitars that shoot flames; blood dripping from Gene Simmons’ eight inch tongue; and most likely legions of women throwing various undergarments in the direction of the band, the staging for “Beth” consists of a single spotlight beaming down on Criss as he bellows from a stool to a prerecorded backing track. You see, despite being written by a drummer, the song contains no percussion. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find any “rock” instruments in it. The accompaniment consists of a heavyhanded string section and a piano, lightly highlighting the melody line.
What makes this song so terrible isn’t just the arrangement of it, though. It’s the arrangement combined with the subject matter. You see, while most of the album’s songs deal with rocking, becoming a god of rocking, living out your dreams by rocking, shouting out loud, dying in a car accident on the way to rocking, or the pleasures of S+M, “Beth”‘s theme is asking permission of your girlfriend/wife to spend the night rocking. That’s right. A guy in a band whose acronym stand for “Knights in Satan’s Service” is on the phone, pleading with his girlfriend to let him stay out a few hours because the band can’t get the song done the way they want. Peter,Peter, Peter, haven’t you learned anything from hanging around with Gene? You’re in effing KISS! You don’t ask permission! You just do it! It’s not even like you’re out partying all night or every day. You’re just playing in your band, singing songs about partying… and maybe shooting some flames out of a guitar. You shouldn’t have to ask permission if you’re on the clock. Especially if you’ve fought– and defeated– the “Phantom of the Park“.
What makes this song laughable though, is its grandiose nature. Criss has taken something truly mundane, and potentially humiliating in the rock community, and treated it with overwrought seriousness, movie score-scope strings, and a deadpan, raspy, wheezing delivery that would make Rod Stewart proud. Come on Peter, be a man!

“Beth” gets two stars for managing to stay around for so long, being the only top ten hit off of twenty-six albums released by the band, and somehow finding a way to make hardcore fans forget about the flames, lights, and fake blood, if only for a brief time. On the other hand, it’s probably the most unwarrantedly dramatic song I’ve ever heard, and would do good to be the anthem for a large population of men who are whipped. I guess that’s why Gene had the demon makeup and Criss was dressed like a cat.

What a difference a little re-imagining can do. A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Pink Floyd’s first album without Roger Waters and first of two (more to come?) albums that serve better as soundtracks to IMAX movies than as any sort of rock album (no, I don’t believe in the power of the rock. I have no romantic delusions about rock music.) brought a number of inconsequential tracks to Pink Floyd’s discography. They all sounded pretty much the same and went on and on (and on). The only semi-standout track would be “On the Turning Away.” (“Learning to Fly” is ok, but it’s not in the same league.) But even though it’s the (semi)standout track on the mediocre album, it’s good, but not great.

The ‘On the Turning Away’ Vinyl Single

This is where record producers come in. I’m not fully claiming to understand what they do (and I doubt that the televised sessions from the Ashlee Simpson Show are an indicator of what they do for 99% of the bands out there), but a simple musical re-arrangement establishes the transition between “good” and “epic.” Maybe David Gilmour did all this re-arranging himself, but it seems like it could easily be the producer saying, “Why don’t you try it like this live?” There are no huge differences: no sitar, no new words, no new guitar solo, no trimmed guitar solo, and so on. But the live recording from Delicate Sound of Thunder completely trumps the original.
Let’s take a listen:

0:00
I’m not sure if Pink Floyd invented it, but here’s yet another extremely quiet, extremely slow (deliberate might be a better word?) start to a song. The stereotypical late-era-Pink Floyd organ/synthesizer is doing its thing just like in the studio version. The organ takes longer getting through the opening chords as the performance is taken a bit slower than in the studio. The original version clocks in at 5:42 while this live version tips the scales at 7:56. The slower tempo is the first step in really establishing the song as a successful epic.

1:12
The singing starts. Because it’s a live version, the audience is heard cheering (of course they have to chear at the beginning of the actual singing because the beginning of the song itself just sounds like pointless synthesizer-playing). Also the first words are, “On the turning away,” so everyone in the audience knows what song it is. During this verse, the sense of scale of the live recording (the sense of scale missing in the studio version) is first heard. By moving the vocals “back” in the soundscape and capturing some of the echo and reverb of the live venue, the song finally has the “presence” that the studio version lacked.

2:27
The second verse starts, and the first big musical change is heard. A standard electric bass doubles the bass line of the organ. It’s a minor change, but it adds more texture to the song. Initially (and on the studio version), there was nothing interesting happening below the vocal track. The organ played a rather subdued (sonically) unfocused bass line, and the song didn’t sound empty, but with a lackadaisical vocal line, only a bit of guitar strumming, an equally lackadaisical vocal harmony line, and that same organ part, the song was stuck on “ponderous.” With the abrupt, focused sound of the electric bass, the song can feel faster while still maintaining the same deliberate tempo.

3:33
This little electric bass section was played by an electric guitar in the studio. Moving the (rather inconsequential) part to the bass spreads out the range and blends directly into the bass part played by the organ in the next section.

3:44
The newly-found sense of scale is on full display as the song seemingly wraps up (just like the studio version), but to really space it all out, drops the drums, guitar (electric and acoustic), and that bass guitar leaving just a the vocals, the organ, and a newly found choir. Starting singing merely texture (mainly aah’s) with the organ against Gilmour’s vocals, the choir swells and seemlessly begins singing the lyrics in just about a billion-part harmony at “coldness inside,” halfway through a line begun by Gilmour. (That’s some pretty sophisticated arranging.) And the acoustic guitar is brought back in for a tiny flourish (more texture) as the organ, choir, and Gilmour revel in the echo of the space and take their sweet time wrapping up the chorus.

4:17+
Guitar solo, etc. begins. Just about spot-on with the studio version except the bass guitar is brought to the front of the soundscape, more forward than even the lead guitar (a risky decision), and the chorus sings along (ooh’s and aah’s) with the organ’s chords.

7:18+
Traditional live rock performance where they can’t figure out how to end the song, and they all beat their instruments until the guitar player (probably) made some sort of big chopping motion with his instrument, signifying the end.

“On the Turning Away” from Delicate Sound of Thunder receives 5 stars due to its successful “reboot” of the original version of the song. To be honest, I could do without the lyrics (the “turning away” refers to people with money ‘turning away’ from those in need. Spare me. I’m sure that David Gilmour uses his heated garage to house homeless people, not Aston Martins.). In spite of that, this version includes some of the best 45 seconds ever committed to a record (3:33 – 4:16). Perhaps one of the most successful mulligans of a studio recording ever.