Sunday, Nov. 09, 2003 | 22:25
sell out or eclectic taste?
at the store looking for a gift for a friend i decided to indulge two faces of my diverse musical tastes: to show i'm getting old i purchased the deluxe edition of Mandy Moore's 'Coverage', and to rock out i got the reissue of Mastodon's 'Remission'.
by any measure the Mastodon cd is astounding, certainly something well worth having. think classic 80's metal (e.g. Slayer and 'Master Of Puppets'-era Metallica) filtered through 90's sonic innovations. think hard rock strut and metal virtuosity. think awesome.
'Coverage' isn't nearly as good, though it's not painfully bad, either. Many Moore covers twelve songs in ways your parents might enjoy, with tastefully modern and pristine production. rarely are these tracks overproduced, and her voice, while limited, handles these songs well. her version of "I Feel The Earth Move" has some annoying generic record scratching, but she also covers XTC's "Senses Working Overtime" (which i recognized as XTC from the chorus melody without knowing anything about it, showing once again that Andy Partridge is an ace pop songwriter) and an obscure Elton John tune. not being a major pop music afficionado, i can't say i know all the tunes, but several sound vaguely familiar. songwriters: A.Partridge, M.Scott, T.Rundgren, C.King, E.John/B.Taupin, J.Armatrading, C.Stevens, D.Harry/N.Harrison, J.Jackson, C.Simon, J.Mitchell, J.Hiatt. Prince trainspotters might recognize Tommy Barbarella's keys on a few tracks. X trainspotters probably won't recognize D.J. Bonebrake on vibraphone. Evan Dando even throws in guitar on "Anticipation". i'm not sure what this says about their careers.
Sunday, Nov. 02, 2003 | 19:00
i'm a fan, as long as i can be.
so, Tori Amos has a new cd called Tales Of A Librarian coming out. it's a career retrospective as only someone as quirky and indiosyncratic as Tori would release: olds songs revisited and refashioned, with new takes on "ultra-rare" b-sides and maybe some new stuff, along with a bonus dvd of a soundcheck from her last tour. i'm not holding my breath, but if the songs sound different from the original versions (which i have), then i'm probably going to get it. still, i wish she'd put out a rarities box that collected all the non-album tracks she's released, and a few she hasn't put out. in their original forms. i'd like to have the original sugar. honey. take to the sky. stuff like that.
