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Archive for the ‘The Beach Boys’ Category

12 musical things I (we) dislike about Christmas

Posted in Beck, Brian Wilson, Canadian Music, Christmas Album, David Sedaris, Eartha Kitt, Holidays, Johnny Cash, Paul Debraski, Radio, Religion, The Beach Boys, The Flaming Lips, Wikipedia on December 22, 2008| 2 Comments »

Last year I listed my 12 favorite Christmas discs.  This year I figured I’d do 12 gripes and 12 raves about Christmas music in general.  Of course, I’ll start with my gripes.

Note: This list only includes songs that we personally own (mostly on compilations we’ve bought over the years).   This is why “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” and Paul McCartney’s “A Wonderful Christmas Time” are not included here, because I don’t own them, so I don’t have to hear them.

This is Sarah here, chiming in as the co-owner of all this Christmas music and lover of Christmas music and person who makes us listen to it all December long.  I felt compelled to butt in, so you’ll see my comments below.

In no particular order…

1. “Santa Baby”
earthaBoy I can’t stand this song.  I know it’s supposed to be cute and racy and risque or whatever, but I simply can’t stand how crassly materialistic it is.  And I’m not one who thinks Christmas is all about, like, Jesus’ birth or being good or anything.  I know it’s all about the presents; however, this song is just….so…wrong.  And if the Eartha Kitt version (the one you hear most of the time) veryspecialweren’t bad enough, the Madonna version (on A Very Special Christmas) is just abysmal.  She sounds like a sexually deranged Betty Boop (which I suppose is not unusual for her circa this release, but still).  Stop trying to seduce Santa!  Make it go away!

Sarah: I concur. (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–Then We Came to the End

Posted in Books about writers, Cancer as plot device, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Joshua Ferris, Marriage Trouble, Michael Nyman, Pregnancy, Q, Sex, Smarty Pants, Technology, The Beach Boys, The Divine Comedy, Threats, Violence on December 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

thenwecameSOUNDTRACK: THE DIVINE COMEDY-Liberation (1993).

libeartiuonThis is considered by many to be the “first” Divine Comedy album, even though Neil Hannon released a previous album under the name Divine Comedy (Fanfare for the Comic Muse).  He disowned that album, but, as you do, he reissued it several years later after much demand.

This is the second Divine Comedy album that I bought (after Promenade). And so, because I just reviewed Promenade, this review works as something of a comparison, which is of course, unfair, as Promenade should be compared to this, but so be it.

What I was most struck with, when listening to this disc after Promenade is how, even though the album covers are designed similarly, and everything about the discs suggests they should be similar, just how dissimilar the music is.  Not in a global “who is this band?” sense, but just in the particulars of the orchestration.

With Liberation, there’s no Michael Nyman influence.  Rather, you get some beautifully written orchestral pop music.  Although the orchestra is not terribly conventional: with harpsichord and organ being among the top instruments heard.

In a comparison to Promenade, Liberation is less thematically consistent but has more singles to offer.  “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (the title of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, so the literate songwriting is clearly in evidence) is a wonderful pop song.  As is “The Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count,” (“Even when I get hay fever I find, I may sneeze, but I don’t really mind… I’m in love with the summertime!”) the catchiest ode to summer this side of the Beach Boys.  “Your Daddy’s Car” speeds along on plucky strings and is just so happy, even when they crash the car into a tree.  “Europop” is a fantastic dressing down of Europop songs while still being hugely catchy.

Because I really enjoy Promenade (and Casanova) I tend to overlook this disc, but really it is just as good, and in some cases better than those two.  An air of pastoral glee pervades the record making it a real joy to listen to.  Especially in the summer.

[READ: December 8, 2008] Then We Came to the End

This book has the great distinction of being written in the first person plural (the narrator is “we,” for those of you who don’t remember eighth grade grammar).  This, of course, brings the reader into the story almost against his or her will.   Really, though, as you read it, you don’t think of yourself as being in the book, but rather, that the company that the unnamed narrators work for is something of a collective mentality.  And so it is.

The narrators work at an unnamed advertising agency in Chicago.  The time frame is the late 1990’s to early 2001 and there are lots and lots of layoffs.  Any time someone is laid off, “we” say they are “walking Spanish down the hall” (from a Tom Waits song).  And slowly they watch as one by one, staff are let go. (more…)

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