The secret's out.

This post is dedicated to my good friend J.A.M. wherever he may be (middle of nowhere pa making lasers like the super-genius he is). Well anyway, if he ever actually reads this, we may get in a fight.

So, I was on my way back from my habitat from humanity gig, when the song that J hates more than any other popped up on my iPod. The name of this song, you ask? Sir Duke. It's by Stevie wonder and the first blast of the trumpet makes J's face (and his brother's) turn redder than a wrestler going through serious roid-rage. The gears in his head start turning with fury and he waxes poetically about Mr. Wonder's many faults as a songwriter. I'd like it to be known that this particular friend of mine has unmatched disputation skills, so I just let him go on (for fear of looking like a fool).

However, there is one small fact I've managed to hide from Mr. M since we met my freshman year of college. I do not hate this song. In fact, I kind of like Sir Duke. I never put the song on purposely, but I won't skip it either. Most importantly, every time I hear it my toes tap and I start humming along. And you know what? I'm tired of hiding it!

I don't care if it's a "bad" song. I realize that the lyrics are banal at best. I can hear the song's almost complete lack of true originality. I just don't care. It makes me happy and I will no longer be ashamed. Stephen King said (in a column somewhere) that there should be no such thing as a guilty pleasure. He was speaking about movies, i believe, but the statement rings true with just about any type of art. Yet critics still chatter on about comic books versus painting, pop music versus the great concertos, and blah blah blah blah blah.

Art, no matter how trivial, is made because the artist has something that needs to get out. Hopefully, that art resonates with someone else in the world. Now, I will readily admit that 99.9% (maybe even all) of the poems I've written are complete and total crap. But that does not mean they are not art. Likewise, Sir Duke may be a "bad" song, according to some people's standards, but it is still music. And I like it. No guilt.

Yes, I realize that this whole entry goes against the notion that music should even be critiqued, thereby making all previous and future blog entries futile. But it's my blog, and I reserve the right to be a complete and total hypocrite. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, internet.

I'm freaking out man...

So, apparently god/zeus/ the great spaghetti monster doesn't want me to have fun on friday nights as evident in the weather, me driving to the wrong movie theater, and the numerous planning/scheduling conflicts I've experienced in the past couple of weeks. But I showed him. In the face of mounting hurdles on the road to fun, my friend and I decided to just pack it in and rent a movie. Our choice, you ask? Across the Universe. It was quite... trippy.

Now, I will make absolutely no attempt to review that movie. It was unlike any movie I've ever seen, I'm very conflicted about whether or not I actually like it, and I readily admit that I do not have the wealth of knowledge to dissect it in any way that is at all satisfactory. So instead, I'm offering up my opinion on the musical stylings of Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, and the various artists that made this movie what it was.

We'll start with Evan Rachel Wood. The first two songs she sung (Hold me tight and It won't be long) gave her room to belt and that was pretty impressive. However, I was slightly disappointed in her covers of "If I Fell" and "Blackbird". While it's clear the girl can hold a note, a feat that is impressive compared to the crap "artists" disney shells out, the songs dragged on like funeral marches. "If I fell" seemed even worse since it came after T.V. Carpio's cover of "I want to Hold Your Hand." Carpio instilled her own style into her song, revitalizing it a bit. "If I fell," however, just was completely uninspired.

The other lead character was Jim Sturgis' Character (Jude, of course). Now I have a weak spot in my heart for good looking brits, so I may be a tad biased. But I thought he was pretty good. I actually thought they had hired a singer to dub the songs until I looked it up on the internet. "All my lovin" was incredibly faithful to the original. My favorite songs were probably "Across the Universe" and "Revolution." The first song has a sweeping orchestra at times, and a chorus at others. The second is all Sturgis and angry guitars. It was refreshing to me that he could succeed at both the slow songs and the rock songs. He wasn't perfect, but he was at least not notably weak at any point.

Well, I've got a life to get on with... but next time, I'll probably write about the other two notable singers from the movie. Dana Fuchs played Sexy Sadie and Martin Luther played JoJo. Luther's songs were easily the best, but I'll save that for another time.