Suburban Tribe

Monday, June 13, 2005

"I Don't Know If It's Art, But I Like It!"

The only opinions I have about music are binary in nature; I either like it or I don't. I'm not really big on reading music reviews, either. They're just impenatrable to me, and a lot of them just seem... I don't know, snobbish. Reading them reminds me of when I was studying photography a few years back. 4 out of 5 big-name photographers would cite their entry into the field as some variation of this sentence: "I always wanted to be an illustrator, but learning to draw was just too much work. So I became a photographer." I never figured out if illustrators or photographers were supposed to be more insulted by that statement.

But anyway,
Jagged Little Pill is a decade old this year and Alanis Morissette released an acoustic version this week to commemorate it. It's only available at Starbucks for the time being, so I stepped into one (grrr...) of our local shops and picked it up this morning. I prefer to buy my music through iTunes, so I had to get over a mild case of sticker shock when the cash register rang up $16.95. It was worth it, though. I've listened to the whole CD three times today. In 1995, there were three female celebrities on my 23-year-old radar: Gillian Anderson, Janeane Garafalo, and Alanis. I think maybe Alanis has held up the best. (In an artisitic sense, of course.)

I'm also really into orchestral movie soundtracks. I listen to Classical music the most, and movie soundtracks are, in a way, the only classical music that is freshly composed and recorded these days. The fact that they also tell stories is a bonus. Hans Zimmer has co-composed the soundtrack to
Batman Begins, and since his Gladiator score is one of my all-time favorite soundtracks, I'll be slipping out of the office at lunch to pick that bad boy up on Tuesday.

And as a quick aside; what the hell is going on here? First
Episode III was good, and now it looks like someone has finally made a decent Batman movie? Fingers crossed for Fantastic Four for the hat trick.

So that's all. It's just been a while since I've bought two newly-released CDs from a brick-and-mortar store within as many days. Maybe I
am getting old.

16 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I always wanted to be an illustrator, but learning to draw was just too much work. So I became a photographer."

Being an amateur/semipro photographer I must say that you're right, this is insulting to both photographers and ilustrators.

3:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Batman Begins just doesn't look good, young man ! It looks . . . . delicious !

6:57 AM  
Blogger John Lee said...

I do agree that Doom's lack of European-ness is a drawback.

8:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

... O_o

9:16 AM  
Blogger fulsome said...

I loved Alanis when I heard You Oughta Know and then she lost a little luster with Hand in My Pocket song; I wanted her to be angry, damnit. Then she lost all favor when I heard Ironic , the song that cemented -- or maybe just made it official, the synonyms of coincidence and irony.

I know it's petty but sometimes I'm just like that and, hey, isn't that what the internet is for?

On the positive side, Batman Begins does seem to hold out hope. We'll find out soon enough.

7:49 PM  
Blogger lorem ipsum said...

Oh man. I remember the first time I heard 'You Oughtta Know.' I was developing film at a Veterans' hospital in Cincinnati and it grabbed me because: (1) Hers was the only female voice on this radio station that wasn't station identification (you know the format - AC/DC, Metallica, etc.) and (2) WOW! This chick was pissed off! Even more so than Tori Amos!

Then I found out she was like nineteen and I thought, 'I hope her folks don't shoot her when they hear these lyrics.'

I agree with Fulsome - I thought 'One Hand in My Pocket' and 'Ironic' were kind of dumb. But I like her other stuff, charters like 'Unsent' and 'Thank You.' Plus she was pretty cute in her 'SATC' appearance and one of the high points in the otherwise insufferable film 'De-Lovely.'

9:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Huh. That's funny. "Hand in my pocket" was the first single released over here in Australia, the one they release so everyone knows her name when they release "The A-Bomb".

I actually preferred hand in my pocket to you oughta know. There were a few pretty damn good tracks on that album, but overplay on the radio and EVERY damn pub had it on the jukebox . . . just killed it. Like a stake through the heart of some nameless evil !

I always preferred the first garbage album to alanis anyway !

11:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Up here in Canada HMV has now pulled Alanis' other cd's because she launched this one only at Starbucks. Seems a little petty to me.

I don't remember the last time I bought a cd but this one does interest me. I may just have to go to Starbucks (horrors) and pick it up.

When Alanis first launched up here the only thing we talked about at first was her stint on "You Can't Do That On Television". Then we listened and Jagged Little Pill was great.

I was working in a kitchen and we had an older navy guy as our cook. The only thing he said about Alanis when we were listening at 6am was that he sat beside her at football games and she seemed such a sweet girl who was she trying to kid by acting so angry and spastic. Maybe she was trying to be something she wasn't to sell albums. Maybe she really was that angry little girl. I don't know but she really spoke to a lot of us up here.

-Canadian fan of the Tribe

12:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whoa, the only classical music being composed now is film scores? My dad's a concert pianist who focuses on contemporary classical music. Here's a page that has some audio samples from a CD he and other musicians recorded of some music composed by my godfather.

12:52 PM  
Blogger lorem ipsum said...

Actually, the other day I asked John if he thought certain sountracks would wind up on the classical station one day and he said that there isn't really so-called classical music now. I cited Copland and Bernstein - yes, they're gone, but they aren't ancient either (or European).

I fully believe the Beatles' music is classical music. Just give it time. If it's still be sung and recorded orchestrally in 100-150 years, that's the test. That's what separates it from 'folk music,' which is merely sung. Stephen Foster compositions are that old, but rarely do you hear any of it in orchestral form. Besides, it's almost TOO American (Copland and Bernstein notwithstanding) to be seriously considered by the international audience that seems to merit classical music in terms of age (of the composition and of the nation of origin).

Labeling is what it really comes down to. Like the man said, I don't know what it is, but I know what I like.

1:40 PM  
Blogger lorem ipsum said...

ps Classical composition is alive and well at leading music schools such as Julliard and Indiana University.

1:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And not-so-leading music schools like WVU, where my godfather teaches composition. Almost every music school has a composition department.

I love movie soundtracks too, but most of them don't stand well as compositions on their own. Many (John Williams in particular) borrow heavily from classical composers. Hans Zimmer...while I love his scores...borrows from himself constantly. Go watch The Lion King, then Pirates of the Caribbean, then Backdraft. Some of the themes from Backdraft are repeated verbatim, down to the instrumentation, in the two later films.

1:51 PM  
Blogger John Lee said...

Thanks for posting a link to your father's work!

When I said that "movie soundtracks are, in a way, the only classical music that is freshly composed and recorded these days." I was aware of CDs and publishers such as the ones you pointed out.

But you could knock me over with a feather if I walked into a Best Buy on a Tuesday to find an original classical/orchestral music CD released by Geffen and sitting next the latest Foo Fighters in the New Releases rack. That's what I was referring to.

11:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know what you mean. I've been trying to get my hands on the EP3 soundtrack for two weeks now and I can't find it except in specialty stores that charge absurd prices.

6:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've always like Jagged Little Pill. It's in my iTunes library rotation. I can understand why so many people got turned off to it. One, it was played way to much so that burned people. Two it is one angry album. Everytime I listen to it I think "man who molested this woman".

And that's why I love the album. You can feel her rage and scorn. That's why I also like Emminem's Skeletons In My Closet. I don't care for Marshall as a person but I've got to respect his unique sound and ability to convey emotion in his music.

As an aside, were there any other Alannis fans bummed when she got married? I was bummmed for A) losing my crush B) thinking that her anger has subsided so her music will suffer.

9:04 AM  
Blogger lorem ipsum said...

I know she's engaged, did she get married under our radar? I guess the Britney/K-Fed juggernaut blinded us...

9:13 AM  

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