Tuesday, Feb. 06, 2007 | 13:09
sergio mendes - timeless
i was hanging out with a friend the other day and we saw this commercial featuring sheryl crow singing buddy holly's 'not fade away'. my friend, he's a buddy holly fanatic, right down to the glasses, and it made him uneasy to hear sheryl crow butchering a classic song like that. i suppose she's paying tribute to buddy, though it's also the name of her tour sponsored by some hair dye product that guarantees to last a long time. she's updating a classic song to make some cash.
at some point someone in the sergio mendes camp posed the question: how do we update classic brazilian pop for today's generation? these guys, whoever they were, brainstormed possible solutions. who has a finger on the pulse of this generation, is churning out hits, and could transform anything into record sales? i know, let's give it to will.i.am!
wrong answer. not that he's not a commercial machine at the moment, but the black eyed peas, um, i wouldn't call him a mastermind but he seems to be the one with the ideas, such as they are, mangles and butchers old sergio mendes songs in a vain attempt to hip hop-ify brazilian music. i suppose that where the originals keep their rhythmic spine they do ok, but when will takes bossa nova and turns it to hip hop everything goes in the crapper.
i don't know much about sergio mendes, or his music. i don't know the originals, but i know any one of those songs will last longer than this album ever could. i don't know what they mean by calling this collection of songs 'timeless', because it most certainly is not.
i told my friend, after the sheryl crow commercial, that i'd rather live in a world where buddy holly inspired such insipid songmaking as sheryl crow than live in one without buddy holly at all. the same can be said of this album. i'd rather have to endure 'timeless' than not have mendes' timeless music at all.
