|
|
I'll not be fooled!Mar 21 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Music
The Bottom Line Music never looked so good!
Epinions really did it this time! Sending me, a perfectly innocent guy, and a loyal epinionator, just minding my business, to a desert island, with only a stereo and 10 albums of my choice to keep me company. Now that's just plain cruel! No fed-ex boxes drifting in, no volleyball to talk to, just the coconuts, the stereo, a couple of albums and me. I guess there's nothing to do but to accept my fate, and get on with the task of selecting. Needless to say, This is no trivial choice to be made on a whim - who knows how long I may have to make do with this small selection. With all the seriousness this task deserves, I started rummaging through my cd-collection to look for the most diverse and interesting selection of music.... ah but now I got it! This is a trick question! Epinions was going to send me on a desert island with my albums, the complementary stereo set (do I get to keep it?), but no electricity! Then they'd laugh their um... behinds off in their comfortable offices at the silly Finn who fell for it. Why those devious little.... Now that I think of it, this does bring a fresh new twist into the selection process. From my meagre collection I have to select music that looks good. Though ideally, the music should sound good, and be memorable too - it would have to make good humming material. Lyrics in the little cd-booklet are a big plus also, so that if I get bored of humming, I can utilise my horrible singing voice for my own entertainment. Who knows, couple of years of practice with nothing else to do, I might get better. Then there's the consideration of the opposite sex. Now I'm no sex-crazed maniac, but an average guy like me needs to at least see a pretty girl once in a while. I'm sorry, got to face the facts. If I'm going to be cast off into a forced celibacy, at least I want one or two women to look at - something to long for, something to remind me what the opposite sex looks like (just to avoid embarrassing misunderstandings when, or if I get back, you understand). This turned out to be somewhat of a problem though, since the looks and the sex of the artists I listen to doesn't usually figure in when I look for music. In other words, you won't find any Britney Spears records on my cd stand. *sigh* If I'd only known... And of course, it's just my luck that I'm a Tom Waits fan. I'm starting to have serious doubts of my musical tastes right about now, though only from a visual perspective. Without further ado, and with the above considerations in mind, let's see what I came up with. The Black Rider Tom Waits The cover-art is... um... well, imagine a kid with a bunch of different colour crayons. A very disturbed kid. Yes, that's it, you've got it. No, the kid's not on the cover silly, he drew the cover. Drew "Tom Waits" and "The Black Rider" in large eye-catchingly disturbing letters with all the crayons. On the flip side of the booklet you see the same kid has written a snippet of the lyrics of one song, and there's a picture of Tom looking especially ugly, playing a piano, wearing a hat. No women in the booklet here either, just the lyrics to the songs, all 20 (!) of them, and pictures of Tom and a bunch of other odd looking fellows. (If you can't picture what Tom looks like, perhaps you remember Bram Stoker's "Dracula"? Waits played the madman "Raymond" who "wanted his master". In the madhouse, you remember?) There's also a lot of extra text in the booklet that I've never bothered to read, but I guess that on the island I'd find time for that. I hope its interesting. Musically The Black Rider is... odd. That's putting it mildly. It's a "rock opera", which is neither rock, nor opera. Some day in the near future, I'll have to take on the task of reviewing this brilliant but extremely alternative piece of work that features pretty much everything from circus music to spagetti western. I love it! (I know, my friends tell me I'm weird too.) Definitely the strangest album Tom Waits has ever produced, and that's saying a lot. I can just see myself singing to the lyrics on the beach (and this is good, cause you are supposed to sing this off key): "When you hear sweet syncopation, And the music softly moans, T' 'aint no sin to take off your skin And dance around in your bones When it gets too hot for comfort And you can't get an ice cream cone T' 'aint no sin to take off your skin And dance around in your bones..." Symphony No. 9 "Choral" Beethoven, performed by Papian, Donose, Fink, Otelli and the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Chorus Béla Drahos What? Beautiful, sexy women in the booklet of a classical cd? How could this be, you ask!? Naturally, it couldn't. *sigh* Instead, the cover features a pretty painting of a rural landscape. But the contents of the booklet are pretty good - not only do they include the lyrics of the choral part both in English and in German (hey - language practice!), but also some background information on the composer, and the artists performing in this version. Besides, what would I do without Beethoven, and this brilliant last symphony of his? I've listened to the ninth so many times that I could probably hum the whole thing through - and that's a whole lot of humming; 64 minutes and 55 seconds in this version. And when the time would come for the Finale, I would bellow out the parts of the tenors and the sopranos alike, the one-man chorus would make the birds and the monkeys weep! Boy I'm going to be good! Maybe You Should Drive Barenaked Ladies Don't you just love irony? (For those who don't get it, "Barenaked Ladies" is a group of five guys. Fully clothed.) Though I suspect that a few years on I might curse my own cleverness, looking at the cover with two old guys, one on a tricycle wearing goglets on his forhead, and the other standing by him in a bathrobe wearing a helmet. The cover is black and white, which might be refreshing among the green lush vegetation, and the blueness of the ocean. On the inside there is a picture of the band tangled up in rope (I guess this might be funny, in an adolescent sort of way), and one of the old guys with the helmet and the googles on. His grinning too. Funny. Sort of. Heh? The booklet does include lyrics, thus facilitating my singing ambitions. The only problem is that I haven't listened to this for a while, and can't quite remember all the tunes. Then again, on a desert island, that may turn out to be a plus - I could make up my own tunes, and have the lyrics ready made! This might help me pass time. (Naturally, I will first build that luxurious treehouse with all the creature comforts and running water, so that I'll have time to pass.) Musically, the album is mostly acoustic pop with the occasional faint jazzy hint. While this kind of music is on the fringes of my musical tastes (I listen to nothing else quite like it), I find myself liking this band in an odd way. Perhaps it's the beautiful singing voices, perhaps it's the lyrics, but surely sentimentality plays a part. Barenaked Ladies brings memories of my year as an exchange student in Canada, where I was first introduced to the band, long before their MTV debut. Blue is the Colour The Beautiful South Now I know this band has a woman in it. I've seen her, and she's quite pretty too! She has a beautiful voice, a beautiful smile, and she lives in this beautiful, beautiful... wait a minute. What was I talking about again? Oh yes, the album. It has a drawn picture of a child with a guitar on the cover, standing in a blue room drawn in an odd distorted perspective. Eagerly I open the booklet, hoping for a glimpse of the singer, and... There she is! Along with the band. In a picture the size of a postage stamp. Epinions, do I get a magnifying glass to take along too? Please? Well, the neat thing that made me want to take this album along is the lyrics. There are fourteen songs, and each of them has lyrics written down in English, and one other language. The language changes with every song, which is great, because when I get back, not only will I be a brilliant singer, I'll be fluent in fourteen languages too! You have to be practical with these sorts of things you know... The music is acoustic, happy, catchy tunes with brilliant lyrics. You might remember the line "Don't marry her, have me", but more probably you remember the non-watered-down version "Don't marry her, f*ck me". Don't worry, the naughty one is on the album. While profanities are generally not my thing, this song always manages to bring a smile to my face, and I'll be singing it on the beach loud and proud! In... I think that's Italian. Boys for Pele Tori Amos Now you didn't think I was going to go off to the island without any member of the more attractive sex? Or at least without an image of one. Tori is indeed as beautiful to look at as her voice is to listen. On the cover of the album she's sitting in a rocking chair on a run-down porch wearing a seductive smile. (and yes, she's wearing clothes too, don't get too exited!) She's holding a gun too, so don't you get any funny ideas! The image on the cd itself is probably the most serenely, artistically beautiful piece of cd art I've seen. It's a tree. Doesn't sound that impressive, I know, you'd have to see it to appreciate it. Inside the leaflet you find a few more pictures of Tori in various places and various situations, the oddest of which must be the one where she's breastfeeding a piglet. Very tastefully done though, if you can do something like that tastefully. All the lyrics are included, and they are wonderfully cryptic. Many a lonely night will be spent trying to figure them out... This will be the album I'll really miss hearing - it's a beautiful masterpiece. (So go buy it already! My essay will wait...) Strings Attatched Raija Kerppo and Pekka Kuusisto You won't find this one on Epinions, I've looked. It's a classical collection, and a brilliant performance, Pekka Kuusisto playing the violin, and Raija Kerppo on the piano. They play music from Bach, Sibelius, Schnittke, Ravel and Barkauskas. While there are no lyrics, for understandable reasons, the booklet contains quite a bit of information on both the artists and the composers. Notably, it's a classical record with a picture of a woman in it. Actually, that really made no difference to me until now - faced with years of desolate lonelynes. This has for a long time been one of my favourite classical albums. Worthy of a buy, even if Epinions does have a more merciful future planned for you... For the women on their way their lonely desert island, Pekka Kuusisto is not a bad looking bloke. (Though I'm hardly qualified to judge) He's on the cover and inside the booklet! (Clearly discriminatory, against us island-bound males, but I'll let it go this time...) Post Brörk Now I don't like pink very much. The colour I mean. This album has a lot of pink in it, and bright orange too! I just thought that a couple of years of seeing only green leafs, the... um... sand coloured sand, and the blue ocean might make a spot of pink now and then look attractive. (According to Murphy's law though, the island will be covered by pink flowers. Nothing to be done about that, I'm afraid.) The lyrics are there, which is nice, but somehow I have difficulty picturing my self singing the "Hyper-Ballad". Oh, well. Who knows - with a little practice, I may get some Börk flavour into my voice. Besides not liking pink, I also don't like techno. This album has quite a bit of techno influence in it too. Somehow I find myself liking björk, and this album, which just goes to show that two wrongs do make a right! Is This Desire? P J Harvey Now this is an interesting cover leaflet! It's the kind that keeps you occupied folding it back up after opening it. You just never seem to get it done the right way, and the sense of satisfaction is immense when you finally do! Well, maybe it's not that good for you but hey - a desert island doesn't offer that much in the way of entertainment. There's P J Harvey on the cover, and inside the leaflet, and she's kinda attractive in an un-pretty way. The leaflet features various kinds of interesting looking artwork, and the lyrics to her dark songs. She, or someone has scribbled notes all over the lyrics though, which should present me with some challenge in figuring it out. For like - 15 minutes at least. Musically this is alternative, and very good alternative I might add. I definitely recommend giving it a try - it's not only interesting to look at, should you have access to a cd player and electricity, it will make some nice sounds too! Stop Making Sense (Special New Edition) Talking Heads Now David Byrne is kind of a recently acquired taste for me. You know the guy, the one who's dancing looks like he's having a seizure of some sort. He's the guy with the whiny voice wearing the huge suit, and singing strange but catchy songs. Alternative pop/rock, I'd say. Well, this album has a very interesting cover leaflet. Shots of their stage show and that sort of thing are nice, but what really convinced me to take this one along was the random pearls of wisdom in the booklet for me to contemplate in my beach tree-house. Some examples: "Body odour is the window to the soul" and "The Space People will contact us when they can make money doing so. The Space People think factories are musical instruments. They sing along with them. Each Song lasts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. No music on weekends." Here's my own contribution: "David Byrne is weird" But then again, I doubt that that's news to you. Big Calm Morcheeba This last one was a tough choice. There is so much nice looking music out there! I initially wanted to go for Diamond Life by Sade, but the leaflet was pretty uninteresting, and I figured that I needed no reminders to recall Sade's beautiful silky, velvet voice. Skye Edwards, the lead singer of Morcheeba has a bit of the same velvety quality in her voice though, and the music is really beautiful, creative and interesting. (It's also completely different on this album than what you might gather from the hit song that played on MTV some time ago.) Not that I'm going to hear the music on the island though. The album is red all over, which is kind of nice since red (unlike pink) is my favourite colour. The booklet doesn't include lyrics, but rather has pictures of urban environments in it, to remind me of where I come from. *snif* ------- That was it! Now it's time for me to pack up my stack of cds and wait for guys in the black helicopters to come and abduct me away to my island. I'd say good buy, but I'm sure Epinions will find a way for me to continue writing for them from the island. Those slave-drivers have no shame! At least I didn't go for that electricity trick - they can't fool me...  |
| Read all comments (11)|Write your own comment |
|
Ads by Google
|
by starcollector by starcollector
by George_Chabot
![Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast Reviews](http://di2.shopping.com/images/pi/95/a4/8a/2006752046-100x100-0-0.jpg?p=p23.bb4bd41ac7f59e056e94&a=2&c=1&l=8071320&t=120603014001&r=1)
