Is this a brilliant marketing use of the Internet or simply ill-advised? Earlier this year, legendary funk-rock artist Prince tried to give away his current album, Planet Earth, via a newspaper-insert campaign in England just prior to its retail release. But this bold promotional gesture backfired: Prince's British distributors, Sony BMG UK, decided not to release the album after all.
Given that Radiohead is currently in negotiations for a traditional release of the album early next year, this download-virtually-for-free scheme would seem to go against their business interests. (A "discbox" release comprised of both vinyl and CDs is already slated for Dec. 3rd.) Some observers believe the Radiohead move could transform the music industry, but given Internet users' overwhelming preference for free tunes, it seems more likely that the thing to be transformed would be the band's bank accounts.
The Tube's website also indicated that "financial limitations... ultimately contributed to its incapicitated state", but surely the fact that most of you reading this never even heard of the channel is at least part of the problem. Launched in 2005 by Les Garland, who co-developed MTV and VH1 in the '80s and The Box in the '90s, The Tubel was described as "pure music television with no reality shows, no game shows and no award shows." In other words, none of the stuff that most music fans hate about current-day MTV. So it's a shame that the currently-misnamed channel continues to thrives while The Tube's mix of classic-rock clips and currently-hip acts will no longer be seen. File this one under "Gone Too Soon"...
Oct. 2007
Lake Worth, Florida
Memory Almost Full
Paul McCartney
The album opens with its two initial singles, the lilting track "Dance Tonight" (as featured
on an iTunes commercial) and the chugging "Ever Present Past." But the most memorable song of this collection is the third track, "See Your Sunshine", which impresses immediately with its keyboard-and-vocal intro built around an ornate descending melody. McCartney's solo work has been criticized in the past as being overly treacly, but on this song he manages a deft touch. The track's airy arrangement is built around a bassline in which Paul alternates betweens elaborate phrases and wide open spaces.
But the next few tracks do a good job of marrying classic McCartney trademarks with new ideas. "Gratitude" combines a spirited vocal reminiscent of the Band on the Run era with an introspective arrangement similar in tone to those on Paul's preceding release, 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. "Vintage Clothes" starts with the lyrics "Don't live in the past/Don't hold on to something's that changing fast", then makes good on its promise by switching to a jazzy drumbeat punctuated by breathy flute stabs and a fuzzy bassline. At the end of this track, a gently retarding guitar riff leads into the next song, the easy-going "That Was Me", which could serve as McCartney's musical autobiography: "Yeah, that was me/Sweating cobwebs/Under contract/In the cellar/On tv/That was me." This track cross-fades into its successor, "Feet In The Clouds", a gentle acoustic-guitar ballad.
For the penultimate track, "The End of the End", Paul muses on his own mortality over an arrangement of piano and strings. While McCartney has addressed this subject before with the song "That Day Is Done" (written with Elvis Costello for 1989's Flowers In The Dirt), eighteen years later at the age of sixty-five, the topic has surely taken on more immediacy. This time around Paul appears to be attempting no less than to write his own future requiem, a point underscored by lyrical quotes from the song being reprinted along the edges of the CD case. But this is no sad song, as its words take a doggedly positive attitude: "At the end of the end/It's the start of a journey/To a much better place/And a much better place/Would have to be special/No reason to cry." This is literally whistling outside the graveyard ("On the day that I die/I'd like jokes to be told"), as Paul does between verses. But far from being maudlin or inappropriate, the end result is actually quite touching.
But perhaps to avoid the album ending on a melancholy note, a short discordant track "Nod Your Head" is the actual closer, but it feels gratuitous appearing where it does in the running order, and consequently detracts somewhat from its predecessor.
This album may not receive the accolades of its predecessor, but is nonetheless a satisfying collection, and deserved to be heard beyond the coffe-bar confines of its label-owner.
Six Songs for the Spooky Season
Here's a Halloween half-dozen:
1. Monster Mash -- Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers (1962)
The first song on our list is the most light-hearted, celebrating two crazes of the Swinging Sixties -- new dance steps (e.g. the mashed potato) and comedies with a monster theme (The Munsters, The Addams Family). No less an authority than radio host Dr. Demento declares it "the biggest Halloween song of all time." The recently-departed Pickett was convinced to write a song to showcase his Boris Karloff impression, and thus a novelty hit was born.
2. A Day In The Life -- The Beatles (1967)
On the surface, the final track of Sgt. Pepper appears to be a commentary on the mundane. But its initial inspiration was a news report of the death of Guiness heir Tara Browne, who was killed in a sports-car accident, and its centerpiece twenty-four bars of ascending orchestral cacophony. And, of course, there's the emphatic coda of a piano chord that reveberates forever.
3. Gimme Shelter -- The Rolling Stones (1969)
Maybe it's the fact that the film of the same name, a documentary of the star-crossed Altamonte concert, contains footage of a Stones fan being murdered by the Hell's Angels security detail. But a haunting guitar riff by Keith Richards sets a chilling tone that belies the lyrical theme of choosing love over war, and the track stands in sharp contrast to the exuberant "Sympathy for the Devil."
4. Wuthering Heights -- Kate Bush (1977)
This tribute to the Charlotte Bronte literary classic focuses on the end of the book, where the ghost of the heroine Cathy vainly attempts to get the attention of her lover Heathcliff as she stands outside the window of his house. An everlasting love, indeed.
5. Michael -- Prefab Sprout (1990)
This New Wave tune from the album Jordan: The Comeback does have a chorus you can dance to. But the Michael in question is the arch-angel who is petitioned by his former colleague (i.e. Lucifer) to intercede with "You-Know-Who" for the comback of eternity.
6. Thriller -- Michael Jackson (1982)
Despite this superstar's career being eclipsed by legal troubles, this funky tune remains a Halloween staple of pop radio. Which means that at least once a year we get to hear horror-film legend Vincent Price intone lines such as "The funk of forty thousand years".
... and Three Songs of Thanks
For the Thanksgiving season, a trio of songs with a gratitude-themed lyrics :
1. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) -- Sly and the Family Stone
Long before there was ebonics, Sly invented his own language to pen the title for this funk classic.
2. Kind and Generous -- Natalie Merchant
The former lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs wrote that "For your kindness I'm in debt to you " so she was "bound
to thank you for it", repeatedly.
3. Thank You for the Music -- ABBA
"Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say, thank you for the music
For giving it to me"
June/July 2007
Aug./Sept. 2007