Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘“Weird Al” Yankovic’ Category

Maile Meloy–Half in Love (2002)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Barenaked Ladies, Maile Meloy, Marriage Trouble, Short Books, Short Story on December 19, 2007| Leave a Comment »

half.jpgSOUNDTRACK: BARENAKED LADIES-Stunt (1998) & Maroon (2000).

stunt.jpgStunt. BNL took over the world with “One Week,” one of the most ubiquitous songs of 1998, and one that I never actually got sick of, which is pretty surprising. But it’s got many different elements and–and I think this is the clincher–the words are so hard to understand, that I spend most of my time while listening to the song, just trying to figure them out. Weird Al even parodied it (called “Jerry Springer”) so you know it was big.

[DIGRESSION]: Some day I’d like to plot the fortunes of any band that has been parodied by Weird Al. My theory is that a parody by Weird Al = instant commercial failure on future records…some day when I have free time I’ll see what I come up with.

This song helped Stunt sell millions of copies. But to me, Stunt is, overall, one of their weakest efforts. It starts off so strongly with “One Week” and “It’s All Been Done” (a song that is even catchier than “One Week.”)  There are some other strong songs on the disc: “I’ll Be That Girl” is a pretty ballad, and “Never is Enough” is another poppy gem. While “Who Needs Sleep” is one of their silly sounding songs that packs a great chorus. However, the rest don’t so much balance out the mania of the rest of the album as deaden it. I’ve listened to the album twice in the last few days and can’t really remember what some of those middle songs sound like.

Despite that, I made sure to buy the limited edition with bonus tracks, and I must say the bonus track “She’s on Time” is one of the best things on the record.

maroon.jpgMaroon. When I grabbed this record next, I had complete forgotten it existed. I assumed that the next one was Everything for Everyone, so imagine my surprise to find Maroon. And, evidently I’m not the only one who forgot about that album: allmusic says sales were off pretty far for this one (do I blame Weird Al?)

Regardless, I think that Maroon is a far superior record to Stunt. Reviewers suggest that it is sort of a Stunt 2.0, but I think the melodies are stronger and the hooks are sharper. “Pinch Me” is a fun conflation of ballad and the manic energy of “One Week,” while “Too Little, Too Late” starts the record off with a strong singalong. And “Sell Sell Sell” is a fun, over the top rocker.

Steven Page, for the most part, could sing anything and make it interesting. However, when BNL fall into a slightly more “adult contemporary” vein as they did on Stunt, Page tends to lose the pizazz that makes his voice interesting. He gets it back on Maroon, so even some of those middle songs that aren’t awesome, are still enjoyable. Of course, Ed Robertson, the other singer doesn’t fall into that same trap, but I think that’s because he doesn’t often do the mellow songs.

There’s also a bonus song by Kevin Hearn at the end of the album. And, I hate to say it, but I’m just not that big a fan of his. His songs and singing style are all very pleasant, but his whole style is just a little too pleasant. There’s no edge, and I find myself drifting away during his songs. He has more songs coming on later albums too, and they’re all very pleasant, but often very forgettable.

[READ: September 2006] Half in Love

As you can tell by the date, this is one of those books from over a year ago that I read at my previous job. I’ve been reading pretty quickly lately and haven’t had a chance to catch up on some of the old ones on my list. So, my memory is a little rusty of the details (always a danger if you read a lot). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Douglas Coupland–The Gum Thief (2007)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Digression, Douglas Coupland, Edward Albee, Epistolary Novel, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Marriage Trouble, Meta, Tom Petty, Unreliable narrator on December 12, 2007| Leave a Comment »

gum.jpgSOUNDTRACK: TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS-Anthology: Through the Years (2000).

petty.jpgTo me, Tom Petty suffers more than anyone else from egregious overexposure. I’m not sure if it’s just me who feels that way, but in my experience, “Free Fallin'” was utterly inescapable for what seemed like an eternity. And, geez, his mug was all over MTV when that album came out. It got so bad that I simply decided I was done with him.

Well, as it turns out, Sarah is a fan, so I decided to get her a greatest hits for her birthday. We’ve listened to it a few times, and it made me remember that, hey! I used to like this guy. In fact, disc one of this set is pretty darn great. There are about three songs that I didn’t recognize immediately, but otherwise I was singing along to all of his old classics.

There’s a great memory from Fast Times at Ridgemont High with “American Girl,” And there’s some songs that I forgot about like “Breakdown” and “Refugee.” However, I feel that the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks duet “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” was the original overexposure video on MTV. I can’t decide how many times I saw that video when I was a young’un watching MTV in its nascent years. It was so ubiquitous that even Weird Al made a parody of it on his first album called “Stop Dragging My Car Around” (which was not terribly inspired, really).

Through much of the post-Dylan years people were described as the “next Dylan.” What really struck me, re-listening to Tom Petty is that, he seems to have misunderstood that they were speaking about his lyrics, not his voice. It’s bizarre how Dylanesque he sounds, especially on “Breakdown,” If not Dylanesque necessarily, he is at least very idiosyncratic in a way that Dylan made commercial.

Even the second disc (the overexposed era) holds up pretty well, and now, seventeen (!) years later, I can sing along to “Free Fallin'” without cringing. See that, Tom, all I needed was a decade away and now we can hang out again.

[READ: December 10, 2007] The Gum Thief.

An unusual title, The Gum Thief.

I’ve enjoyed Coupland’s work for many years now (see the JPod review), and I’m always excited to see a new book come out. I opted for the autographed box set from amazon.ca which actually turned out be pretty cheap at the time I ordered it. The box set contains Roger Thorpe’s book Glove Pond, (which will make sense in a few paragraphs) which I will be reviewing shortly.

[DIGRESSION]: Incidentally, amazon.ca is THE source for imported items from England. Most of the time, the imports on amazon.com are really expensive. But the retail price on amazon.ca for British imports is usually quite good. (This was even more true before the looney reached parity with our dollar…the exchange rate for awhile was practically half off list price!)

Back to The Gum Thief.

This is what’s called an epistolary novel, meaning it is written as a series of letters. This book varies the premise somewhat by having the letters written to each other in a diary. But it is not a series of diary entries; rather, Bethany discovers Roger’s diary and begins writing responses to his entries in it. It’s a very interesting conceit, and it plays very nicely with these characters, both of whom are completely antisocial. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Roger is an alcoholic, divorced father whose life has been generally going downhill; he more or less bottomed out with a job at a Vancouver Staples. Bethany is a post-high school goth whose life is stalling while she works at the same Vancouver Staples. Roger begins the book with some diary exercises in which he tries to get into the mind of Bethany. Bethany discovers the entries and is appalled and flattered at the same time. She writes back to Roger, telling him what he got right, but also emphatically insisting that they never acknowledge each other outside of the diary.

What Roger’s diary also contains is the beginning of his novel: Glove Pond. The box set I bought contains Glove Pond as a separate item as well, and I’ll review that next. But for now, I can say that Glove Pond is basically Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, in tone, mannerism and setup. [I rather hope this will get people to read the great Albee play]. It is about an older, long-married couple (he is a writer) who inadvertently invite a young, newly-married couple (he is a writer) over for dinner. The angry resentment between youth and age, success and failure and so many other things brews up into a heady mixture of Scotch and insults.

What makes the story even more meta- is that Kyle, the young writer in Glove Pond is writing his new novel, about an old, drunken man who works in an office superstore.

Surrounding the chapters of Glove Pond are the actual letters of the story. Primarily they are between Roger and Bethany, but they also include some correspondence with Bethany’s mom (whom Roger knew in high school), and, in a break from the “in Roger’s diary” aspect, some letters between other co-workers (who also discover Glove Pond, and do not share Bethany’s (genuine) enthusiasm for it).

Aside from all of the intricacies of the make-up of the story, what about the narrative? Well, the story is basically about a young girl–whose life had been full of close people dying–connecting to a frankly pathetic father-figure (but her own father is also out of the picture, so it’s understandable). It is at times very sad, especially as you watch these characters shut themselves down internally and externally.

Ultimately, Bethany tries to make a bold move outside of Staples, a risk that she didn’t think she was capable of. And Roger sets his sights on accomplishing at least one thing in his life, namely, finishing a book. You watch these characters slowly come alive until the last chapter, in which the meta- world comes crashing in on Roger and makes you rethink a lot of what you have just read.

As with most Coupland, the pop culture references, and corporate skewering, are fast and furious. And, as with most Coupland, just when you think the novel is going to be light and funny, weighty themes are opened and genuine sadness falls over these seemingly frozen people. What I think is particularly cool about this book is the way he is able to take a somewhat detached literary style like the epistolary novel and imbue some real passion into these shells of human beings. Obviously, diary entries tend to reveal impassioned thoughts by the writer, but in a series of letters written to two people who are not wooing each other, one wouldn’t expect high emotion. And yet it comes out, and it comes across very naturally.

And, as it turns out, stealing gum does play a pretty big role in both the novel and the novel within the novel, so the title does make sense.

Oh, and there’s also some cool videos available from Random House Canada. They are promotional shorts for The Gum Thief, and they’re available at Coupland’s My Space page as well as on You Tube, which is funny given the You Tube references in the book.

Read Full Post »

Craig Ferguson–Between the Bridge and The River (2006)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, BritLit, Cancer as plot device, Craig Ferguson, Funny (ha ha), Mark Haddon, Modest Mouse, The Smiths on June 12, 2007| 1 Comment »

ferguson.jpgSOUNDTRACK: MODEST MOUSE-We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank (2007).

mouse.jpgShouty shouty shouty. Modest Mouse are a fun shouty band, they have some catchy songs, but they seem so noisy most of the time that I am shocked, shocked, I say, that they ever had a hit. And “Float On” from their last album WAS a hit. So much of a hit that “Weird Al” stuck it in a medley of songs of his latest album. Now THAT’s making it big. And, yet, I’m still confused, because their music isn’t pretty. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts