Category Archives: Music

Movies, Music

This n’ that

First: Hope everyone out there who reads my ramblings had a great holiday and very happy New Year’s.

May all the weight you’ve no doubt gained be quickly lost!

Now, for a couple information nuggets I found intriguing…

First up, and published by Reuters but found on HuffingtonPost.com:

Spotify Hit With $1.6 Billion Lawsuit From Publisher Representing Tom Petty, Neil Young

I’ve long wondered about the various streaming services out there and how exactly they operate.  I assumed it was akin to a radio station in that they play the music you want but you are forced to put up with their advertisements.

However, in this day and age and unlike radio stations, you can specify exactly which music and songs you want to hear and which you do not, an advantage over radio stations but also another source of head scratching for me.  How does the advertisement work then?

What about new music?  Some people may be comfortable with the old standards and are adverse to seeking out or listening to new music.  Finally, how much does a service like Spotify pay the artists whose songs/albums they play?

Apparently, the answer is not nearly enough, at least according to the article I’ve linked to above and hence the reason for the lawsuit.

In this day and age when so much entertainment is available free but illegally online, it’s high time artists fought back when they feel people are listening to their music or reading their books or watching their TV shows/movies without proper compensation.

If Spotify is indeed stiffing the people who make them their money, I hope they lose.  Big.

****

Secondly and though I promised not to dwell on this much more, I just headed over to Rottentomatoes.com and, curious to see where audience reaction was regarding Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I clicked on the movie’s specified link and found…

The movie is now listing an audience reaction of exactly 50%.

In other words, this film has apparently (there are those who feel a concerted effort is being made to bad mouth the film) very evenly split audiences, even as it makes Disney a ton of money.

Still, I wonder if, like Warner Brothers and their handling of the DC properties, the fact that the movie has engendered so much negativity may make them reconsider some of their future plans regarding the franchise.

I’ve been hearing rumblings that the next Star Wars related film, the “young” Han Solo feature whose original directors were sacked and Ron Howard was placed in charge, may be in trouble as well, though the same word of mouth came prior to the release of Rogue One.

As with so many things, we’ll see how this works out.

Music

Acute star fatigue…

Over at Slate.com, Jack Hamilton offers an assessment of the state of music, circa 2017, and notes…

2017 was a year of acute star fatigue

Mr. Hamilton’s thesis is that in 2017 some of the biggest stars in the music biz released albums that were met with a big “ho hum” for many.

Now, its been a hell of a long time since I was plugged into current popular music trends (it’ll happen to you, too, one day!) but even so, I was fascinated with the article nonetheless.

Mr. Hamilton notes that even though 2017 saw the release of new music by the likes of, among others, U2, Katy Perry, Arcade Fire, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, etc., most of these new works either elicited a “ho hum” reaction from fans if not outright dislike, even if some of those albums sold extremely well.

As someone whose musical taste falls between releases from the early/mid 1960’s to roughly the very early 2000’s (like, 2001 or so), I’ve enjoyed plenty of music and plenty of musical styles that have seen its rise and fall.

There’s rock, art rock, heavy metal, glam rock, metal, new wave, punk, alternative, grunge, etc. etc. that are in my stuffed to the gills hard drive.

I’ve enjoyed the early Beatles but really love the mid to late Beatles period.  I love me some Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Rush.  I love David Bowie, Queen, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground.  I love Aimee Mann, The Smashing Pumpkins.  I really dig artists whose biggest days were in the 1980’s like The Smiths, The Motels, The Thompson Twins, The Go-Gos.  I really love some of the metal music also released during the time from the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax (and their side group, Stormtroopers of Death), and Metallica.

Yes, I like quite a big of music.

And yet in the very early 2000’s, tastes in music took a turn and, suddenly, I simply didn’t like what I was hearing anymore.

I’ve often pointed out a very amusing thing rocker/actor/writer/etc. Henry Rollins once said about music (and I’m paraphrasing here):

He noted how when he was young and he’d bring new albums into his household and play them, his father would shake his head and say the new music is terrible.  Mr. Rollins noted how “out of touch” his father was in his opinion, that the new music was so damn good and only those people who were indeed out of touch would not like it.  Then Mr. Rollins noted that as the years passed and new music styles emerged, he found himself liking new music less and less.  He concluded the story by saying something along the lines of: “I never thought it would happen, but I’ve turned into my old man!”

The point is, music, like so many artistic things, goes through its waves.  What is popular today (or in the 1980’s, 90’s, 00’s, 10’s) is not necessarily going to be popular with the next generation and the generation after that.

New artists will rise and, for some, the rise will be quick as will be the fall.  Others may find more lasting success, and are able to release many successful albums and stay in the public’s eye/ear for years, perhaps even a decade or two.

But inevitably, whatever is the rage today will recede when something new and intriguing catches the public’s attention.

For many years now, the musicians mentioned above by Mr. Hamilton have been in the public eye.  They’ve been very successful with their new releases and, as he notes (and this is obviously his opinion, though perhaps shared by many others), these “old” artists have found 2017 a harsher year for their music.

Maybe audiences have indeed reached a point where those styles are no longer as intriguing and new and fresh as before, and these audiences, younger each year, are looking for something else.  Something different.

This is nothing that hasn’t happened over and over again since music first became popular some, oh, few thousand years ago.

And so it goes.

General, Movies, Music

Times change…

In this era where sexual harassment has become something everyone is far more sensitive to -thankfully!- there are things from the past that are being looked at with fresh eyes.

One of them is this song, Baby It’s Cold Outside…

This is the first appearance of the song in the 1949 film Neptune’s Daughter and, yes, that’s Ricardo (KHAN!) Montalban singing!

The song is one of those very big Christmas songs that has been covered by many, many singers over the years since its release.  Here’s another version, by Dean Martin, which I’m embedding below only because it offers the lyrics to the song…

What’s the song about?  Easy: Sex.  Here we have a guy and a gal together in the guy’s apartment/home and the gal wants to head out but the guy wants her to stay over, and its not so they can finish off the latest New York Times crossword puzzle.

Yes, Baby It’s Cold Outside is a Christmas sex song!

Here’s the thing though:  Is the song really an innocent ode to having good ol’ fashioned sex or is this song about… sexual coercion?  Date rape?

Kim LaCapria at snopes.com offers an examination of this song and the opinions about it, especially in these times:

Is Baby It’s Cold Outside about date rape?

As per usual, I don’t want to spoil everything in the linked article, but I will offer some analysis/notes of my own, some of which can be found in the article above.

First, the song clearly presents a woman who is, at least as the song starts, not interested/wanting to stay with the man.  The man, on the other hand, is clearly horny and wants the woman and the line “Baby, it’s cold outside” is his attempt to convince her to stay, among other things.

As the song progresses, the woman notes her mother and father will worry and, if she were to stay, she worries what the neighbors will think.  She’s offering multiple reasons for leaving while the man comes closer, offers her drinks, tells her there are no cabs to be found, etc. etc., all in the attempt to get her to stay the night with him.

Is it indeed sexual coercion?  Or is the song meant to be playful, with the protagonists of this song -both the woman and man- really wanting to get it on and we’re given a “wink wink” view of sexual politics, the woman playing hard to get -but not too hard to get- while the guy has to smooth talk his way to get to where they both want to go…

Here’s the thing, and I posted it clearly in this particular blog’s title: Times Change.

A short while back, and in another blog entry entitled Time Passes and Things Change (gee, how about that?!) I wrote about seeing the opening minutes of the western comedy Waterhole #3.  That film, which featured James Coburn as the protagonist, involves a search for missing money.

I like James Coburn.  I think he was a great actor and he appeared in many fine films, as well as the occasional dog.  Waterhole #3 isn’t one of his better known films, but it is an example of how sexual mores were different in the past versus what we have in the present.

While one could make a case that Baby It’s Cold Outside isn’t quite as dark a song as some view it now, there is no doubt, viewed from today, that the sexual “seduction” scene in the early parts of Waterhole #3 is rape.

Here’s what I wrote about the movie and the “seduction” scene between James Coburn and Margarete Blye’s characters in the film:

Billee (Margarete Blye) finds Cole (James Coburn) in her barn, with his pants down (I’m not entirely sure why he isn’t wearing his pants…I suppose that was meant to be part of the “fun”), and he corners her (“humorously”), she tries to fight him (“humorously”), he pulls her down to the ground (“humorously”), he starts kissing her (“humorously”), and then, but of course, she’s somehow charmed by his actions and succumbs to the passion.

I then added this: Holy shit.

Mind you, this happens within the first approximately fifteen or so minutes of the film and, no, the Billee and Cole characters do not know each other before their encounter and, yes, the scene was so off putting to me that I had to shut the film down right then and there.

But my point is this: Until recently (and by that I mean the last ten or so years and, particularly, within the past year) there was a far looser sense of sexual politics and in a movie like Waterhole #3, released in 1967, the idea that women would naturally fall for a “scoundrel”, especially one played by James Coburn, trumped the ugly implications of what was clearly, clearly, a forcible rape, which disgustingly was played for laughs!

Still, it doesn’t shock me that a forgotten film like Waterhole #3 doesn’t engender the same scrutiny as a famous song like Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Yet its a good thing, in my opinion, that people’s eyes are opening a little more to the world around us.

And if you think this is much ado about nothing, please take a moment to see this video.  If this doesn’t open your eyes about what its like to be the victim of sexual harassment, nothing will.

Music

Oh… my… Part Deux

There’s this tempest (in a teapot?) going on regarding singer Taylor Swift and some statements she made via twitter regarding her 28th Birthday.

Now, before I get a little farther along, let me say: I think I know, like, one song of Ms. Taylor’s.  I vividly recall catching a performance of hers a few years back at some award show -this was when she was still mostly doing country music- and thinking “There’s a reason she’s popular”, even if her music then, and now, doesn’t necessarily appeal to me.

Having said all that…

So what did Ms. Taylor say?

Below a picture of her standing before a filled-to-the-gills stadium performing, she writes:

I love you guys so much. This was a photo @paul_sidoti took at @capitalofficialJingle Bell Ball in London a few days ago. I couldn’t have asked for a better year, all thanks to you. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Can’t wait to see what 28 will be like. See you on tour 😄

What’s so controversial about that, you ask?  It boils down to this:

I couldn’t have asked for a better year

To which people who have viewed 2017 as a horror show -I’m one of those who agree with that sentiment, and calling this past year a ‘horror show’ is, IMHO, putting it mildly- responded in kind.  How so?  You can read some of the reactions in this article, presented on Huffingtonpost.com and written by Lee Moran:

Taylor Swift said she ‘Couldn’t have asked for a better year’ and divided us all

Among the more humorous responses, Rich E stated:

I mean, yeah there were Nazi’s and white supremacy marches, and families are being town apart, and there were mass shootings, and people are losing health care, but none of that affects me, so 2017 was great!

There are a few others presented, but my favorite is probably this one, written by Dana Schwartz:

Read the room, Taylor.

To defend Ms. Taylor, she’s young, she’s likely been living in her own bubble with (understandably) her own interests and has made it a point of -or, perhaps, simply has no interest in- things outside this personal perview, especially in the political field.

So, yes, enjoy your birthday and your continued, hard earned success, Ms. Taylor.  But, perhaps, you may want to start considering your statements -as indeed everyone should!- and if they’re maybe/kinda/sorta tone deaf.

Music

Tom Petty’s passing…

And the beat -sadly- goes on.

Just yesterday I noted the string of bad news coming since last week and continuing through to the latest -and largest- mass shooting which occurred in Las Vegas.

Thought things couldn’t get worse but, of course, they always can.

Word came last afternoon/night that singer Tom Petty had died.  Then, that he wasn’t dead but, worse yet, that he was taken to a hospital after a heart attack and, as per do not resuscitate orders, was taken off life support systems after being found to have no brain activity.

Man.

Today, word came that he had indeed passed away, something that was expected given that last bit of news and, of course, I offer my condolences to his family and friends.

I distinctly remember the first time I heard or at least noticed a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song.  Back in those stone age days before the internet and when MTV first hit the airwaves, I was amused and entertained with this video, which used the then very popular Mel Gibson film Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior as a visual template:

The song wasn’t bad, either!

Look, I’m not going to lie: I was never a HUGE fan of Mr. Petty.  For me, his singing style was not my cup of tea as it was just a little too Bob Dylan-esq.

Having said that, the man knew how to create memorable songs.  He had a string of very popular and very deserved hits and was an ever present fixture of the radio stations I’ve listened to for most of my life.

I could list his most popular/well known songs but I suspect most people out there know them quite well.  While his voice may not have thrilled me, there is little doubt his musical legacy is large and He will be remembered for many, many years to come.

As an artist, ultimately that is your hope, to create something that will entertain and amuse people even when you’re gone.

So Rest In Peace, Mr. Petty.

I believe it’s time for me to listen to more than a few of your songs, for old time’s sake.

Music

Alice Cooper and Andy Warhol…

Found this story over at CNN.  It was written by Oscar Holland and Allyssia Alleyne and concerns…

Alice Cooper’s ‘forgotten’ Warhol found after four decades

The upshot of the article is that musician Alice Cooper, best known for such songs as School’s Out and I’m 18, apparently bought and owned an Andy Warhol print whose value today may be upwards of $10 Million… and it was only now that he remembered he had it.

Why is that?

Blame the 1970’s rock n’ roll lifestyle.  From the article, Shep Gordon, Alice Cooper’s manager at the time, states:

I remember (then Alice Cooper girlfriend) Cindy came to the office and said that she wanted to give Alice the electric chair (painting) for his birthday, and (Warhol’s studio) said she could have one for $2,500.  That’s my recollection but everything from those days is really foggy. As I (later) found out — things that I thought were real were not real.

Incredible, no?  Especially the last line about things that “I thought were real were not real.”

Perhaps that’s the best description of the rock n’ roll lifestyle circa the 1970’s you’re going to find.

Music

Hey Bulldog…

In the seven (yes, only seven) years The Beatles actively released albums (their first album was 1963’s Please Please Me, their last release was 1970’s Let It Be… though that album was actually recorded before 1969’s Abbey Road) they released an incredibly large volume of music.

What is astonishing is not only the amount but how uniformly good/great most of it was.

But when one releases that much material, there are bound to be some songs that rise to the top and others which don’t.  Some may be viewed as not very good -not all of ’em can be winners- while some simply fade away and are liked but perhaps never quite loved.

Hey Bulldog may well be one of those -somewhat- forgotten tunes.  Here are some sounds from the recording of that song back in 1968, with the memorable piano intro…

I like the song but, like many others, consider it a decent but not “terrific” Beatles tune.

Nonetheless, the song has one major distinction which no other Beatles songs have: There are those, like Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, who feel this is the last Beatles song the entire band collaborated on relatively equally.

Yes, you read that right.

Though they would go on to release plenty of other material in the time they remained a band, the fact of the matter is that in 1968 The Beatles were only a couple of years away from breaking up and their personal relationships had already started to fray.

Again, there was still plenty of music to be made and released before the breakup but these songs tended to be done in “camps”. The four Beatles would work on their stuff individually and, its been reported, might get together -or not- to finish off something that was already nearly done.

In the case of Hey Bulldog, the four Beatles were together in the studio and worked on this track from its inception to end in a 10 hour session.  The song was brought in by John Lennon yet it was in collaboration with the other three Beatles that Mr. Lennon’s initial ideas and the finished product was worked out.

Find that bit of trivia about the song fascinating?

Then check out the link below.  In the article, the SirusXM Editors offer…

Hey Bulldog: 9 Things You Didn’t Know About This Overlooked Beatles Song

Music

Musical tastes…

There are plenty of things out there that fascinate me (I worry sometimes that I waaaay overuse that word!) and, to add to the list, is this: What makes music popular?  What makes it stick with one generation, then get ignored -or worse- by another?

Yesterday and over at themuse.com, Ellie Shechet offered this article…

A Playlist of Bands We Pretended To Like As Teenagers

As a Proverbial-Old-Fart™, I’m amused that most of the artists listed came after my own personal music hey-day, though there are bands listed I do like, even to this day (For example, I still think Hole’s Live Through This is a terrific album even though I’ve not gotten into any of the other albums Courtney Love has done nor am I terribly interested in her…celebrity or not).

Now if you scroll past the article itself, someone with the handle GinAndTonic, Potential Grizzly (some of these poster’s names can be quite… interesting) wrote:

U2 makes me want to blow my brains out.

The post has a large number of “likes” and was a response to another poster who noted (but didn’t necessarily put down) U2.

What fascinates (see, I’m using that word again!) me about the post is the venom many seem to have today, especially the younger generation, toward U2.

In part I suspect this was due to the ill-advised 2014 give away of their latest album, Songs of Innocence, via iTunes… whether the iPhone/iPad/iWhatever user wanted it or not.

I wrote about this here and here, noting that while there was absolutely nothing wrong with releasing an album by a big band like U2 free for anyone with an iPhone/iTunes/iWhatever to get free, it was not a good idea to automatically have it download to everyone’s device whether they asked for it or didn’t.

It was a way to take something good (the giveaway) and make it bad.

And I can’t help but think that this poisoned the well for U2 with today’s youth.

I grew up with U2’s rise and, personally, love almost every one of their albums -from start to finish- from The Unforgettable Fire to Zooropa.  Don’t get me wrong: I like many songs in the albums previous to The Unforgettable Fire, including this song, found on the album War, which proved my first big awareness of them back in the early 1980’s (boy, we were young back then)…

I felt, roughly until Rattle and Hum, that U2 could do no wrong.  That album felt bloated and, though it had a few good songs here and there, seemed to be a band moving without much direction.  Then came Achtung Baby, their best later stage album, IMHO, and the “throwaway” experimental album Zooropa, a wild one-two punch that I loved.  That album concluded with this interesting collaboration between U2 and -of all people!- Johnny Cash:

But their follow-up album to Zooropa, Pop, was absolutely dreadful, IMHO, and I could only listen to it once and haven’t given it another try since.  Their subsequent albums have featured decent enough songs here and there but, sadly, I feel the band simply lost itself and the magic it had.

This is, by the way, something that seems to happen to almost all acts, especially those that constantly try to do something new and interesting.  Sometimes, new and interesting takes you into areas that lose fans.  While I can certainly appreciate that they’re still trying, most of the stuff that’s come post-Zooropa just hasn’t been my cup of tea.

Which is a shame but goes a long way from declaring hatred toward them and their music!

My eldest daughter, a big music fan, can’t handle U2 and will not listen to them either and, I feel, that’s a shame.  They created some great music but, as I mentioned way back at the start of this posting, music tastes change and what can work for one generation may not work at all for another.

Was the Apple download fiasco a big part of the reason some of today’s youth hate U2?  I suppose.  But I also suppose that today’s youth seek their own music and they simply cannot look at what are now middle aged -and older!- musicians strutting their stuff and accept them as cutting edge music they’re interested in pursuing.

Music

The struggle is real…

Thankfully, its starting to go away but over the past two to three days I’ve been infected with the most malicious of viruses: An earworm.

What’s an earworm?

From Dictionary.com:

Earworm: a tune or part of a song that repeats in one’s mind.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an earworm is when a song gets “stuck” in your head and parts of said song repeat over and over and over and over again until you’re ready to pull a drill out of your toolbox and…

…ahem…

I’ve had earworms before.  I’m sure most everyone has.

In my case, the latest earworm I’ve struggled with was The Beatles’ Martha My Dear, from their White Album.

Here’s a very early demo of the song…

What’s weird about this is that, frankly, of all the Beatles songs out there, its one that I’ve never really given all that much thought to.  It’s a nice song, mind you, a cheerful Paul McCartney tune dedicated (yep) to his dog Martha and its a nice piece but hardly one of the most memorable of songs.

And yet the other day, when I was tuning in to the various Sirius stations I stopped at their Beatles one and the host talked about this song and how he knew Martha (the dog) and here’s the song…

…and it played and stuck in my head ever since.

Best way to combat an earworm is to try to overlap/drown it out with another song.  In my case, I chose something far more bombastic…

With my luck, I’ll have this song be my latest earworm…

Movies, Music

Joel Schumacher and Batman and Robin…

It’s been 20 years since the 1997 release of Batman and Robin, the fourth film of the original Batman series which followed Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever.

The first two films, directed by Tim Burton, featured Michael Keaton in the titular role and such luminaries as Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Danny DeVito as The Penguin, and Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman.

After Tim Burton and Michael Keaton stepped away from the franchise director Joel Schumacher stepped in for two Batman films, the second being the much reviled Batman and Robin.  Before he did that one, however, he directed Batman Forever, which had Val Kilmer in the titular role.

I must admit, I can’t quite understand why certain people so venomously hate Batman and Robin yet give this film a pass.  To me, both films were pretty similar in tone and execution.

But don’t take my word for it.  Here’s the trailer for Batman Forever:

And here’s the trailer for Batman and Robin:

Seriously, do you see much of a difference in the trailers?  It’s not like Joel Schumacher took a radical turn and did something completely different from his first Batman film with his second.  And what he was doing was clearly a big budget version of the now beloved Batman TV show which featured the recently passed Adam West.

Note the word “now” in the last sentence above.

Though people today in 2017 seem to have a great deal of affection for the light-hearted Batman presented in that 1960’s era TV show, the fact of the matter is that much of the reason for the hate for Batman and Robin is because it is too lighthearted and… goofy.  Sure, they spit venom at the notion of the Batman and Robin suit having “nipples” on it but really what they were against was the fact that this film -and the previous one he made- weren’t all that serious.

People forget but at that time there was a demand for a “darker” interpretation of Batman during those years.  Indeed, when Christopher Nolan started up his Batman trilogy a few years later we were given just that: a far more “serious” take on the character and his mythology.

Yet paradoxically it seems that by the time Mr. Nolan’s third and final Batman feature was released, audiences were now split.  They had their fill of the darker, more serious Batman and, perhaps because of this, there was a resurgence in nostalgia regarding the Adam West Batman.

Indeed, by the time Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released, one of the biggest complaints against the film was that it was too “dark”.  While there were certainly those -me among them- who loved the film, those who hated it felt it was simply too grim in its tone.

Which makes one wonder… is it possible people may take a second look at Mr. Schumacher’s Batman films and give them another chance?

Regardless, on the anniversary of 20 years since the release of the much maligned Batman and Robin, Joel Shumacher looks back and issues a heart felt apology (the link below is to an article written by Lisa Respers France and found on CNN.com)…

Joel Schumacher apologizes for Batman and Robin

What’s most interesting, as a writer myself, in the article is this line from Mr. Shumacher:

“By the time ‘Batman Forever’ came around, rubber molding had become so much more advanced,” Schumacher explained. “So, I said ‘Let’s make it anatomical’ and gave photos of those Greek statues and those incredible anatomical drawings you see in medical books. He did the nipples and when I looked at them, I thought, that’s cool.”

I point this out in particular because this, in a nutshell, is what almost everyone who works in a creative field faces: The fact that it is almost impossible to judge how audiences will react to your ideas.

I’ve read plenty of articles, most especially from songwriters/bands that created a song they felt was a throwaway or was simply intended to fill out an album and didn’t feel that particular work was particularly good… yet were surprised by the way audiences reacted to it.

Hell, even my favorite musician of all time, David Bowie, didn’t feel the below song was worth releasing on his Diamond Dogs album and it wouldn’t be until at least a decade later that people finally heard the excellent alternate version of Candidate, which is one of my favorite David Bowie songs of all time:

Had it not been for “special editions” of his albums, I may never have heard this excellent song.

Then there are those works an author or artist may spend uncounted hours on and view as a source of pride…and audiences barely care about it or, worse, hate it.

Mr. Shumacher did what he thought would work.  It didn’t and he was lambasted for it.  Indeed, his career certainly suffered for it.

Did he deserve the scorn?

Who am I to say.

But I do wonder.  Now that a “lighter” version of Batman is in vogue, is it possible people might give these films a second chance?

Time will tell.