Music

The Background

In September 2008, Janet Jackson started an arena scale tour in Vancouver with 14 transport trucks, 10 dancers and an unknown number of Versace filled trunks. The tour, dubbed “Rock Witchu” -- a rather weird morphing of Michael’s “Rock With You” -- never seemed to pick up steam. Twelve of 28 shows got cancelled, sell-outs were rare and, landing squarely in the middle of the big economic melt-down of 2008, while Janet claimed vertigo for the cancellations, it may be that the economics of the show never made sense. Jackson sold a mere 440,000-something of her “Discipline” record; poor numbers for one of the best known women in show biz. The record was scarcely noticed after appearing at number one on Billboard in the first week of release, demonstrating the sheer irrelevance of the “chart” and that publication in particular in the modern age of music.

And so... in late 2009 the JJ brain-trust released yet another greatest hits album and a “Number 1’s” tour hit the road in first part of 2011. This time Janet is in auditorium type venues (guaranteeing more frequent sell-outs), somewhat better physical condition and fronts a promotional line that evokes a savvier, more Vegas oriented return in the style of Elvis or Cher.

I was at the Vancouver show in 2008 and never published the review I wrote at the time. After the tour crashed and burned, I put the review aside and figured it would join my vast collection of unpublished observations, especially after Michael’s death in 2009. Janet’s latest re-invention of her star persona caused me to take a look again at what we saw a few years ago. Reviews are just as much snapshots of where we the audience were at the time as they are about the artist. Janet’s celebrity and its transformation is more interesting than ever.

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Sitting in the Stands of the Sports Arena...

By 8:30 PM we begin to get the real sense that this whole "LL Cool J is opening the show" stuff is just a bunch of BS. A few minutes later the lights go out and a couple of big "J's" start sliding around the stage. There are the dancers. And we're off.

I saw Michael in Buffalo in 1981 with his brothers. I know what it is like to see Jackson royalty at their peak. Not yet having seen Janet Jackson perform live and knowing it's been a while since Control, Rhythm Nation, janet. Let's just say... well, it's not that her best years are behind her; it's something else. Music is different. This larger than life millionaire, superstar, goddess thing seems so utterly from another era. That's it! Janet is one of the last in a run of pop monster stars. Hers and the nearby orbiting supernova of Madonna and Mariah are peculiar oddities from the halcyon days of the musical tycoons. We might as well be watching "Casablanca" or the moon landing or the Berlin Wall falling. Janet Jackson may still be recording, and yes in a few seconds she will be there pumping and jumping, but she is more history than news.

In the 2/3's full GM Place I feel a twinge of remorse. Is this a last big show “Hurrah” for one of the greatest female performers of an era? Is this the last stop before the inevitable extended run in Vegas? This is the artist with 100 million in record sales with her latest recording hovering at the 400,000 unit mark. If you don't think music marketing and distribution has changed then take a look at Janet's change of fortune, despite some pretty good releases... Well, okay, 20 Y.O. was not very good.

And no; I don't long for the old days. They were what they were. Teenagers in the '70's had the music and radio monoliths. We had the recording hierarchy and we fed the star-making machine. For all it's weaknesses it created some extraordinarily popular, and lucrative, music. No one could imagine something like a Rumors or an Aja or a Songs in the Key of Life being made, let alone prospering in the musical world of today. There use to be big budgets for the big stars and they could take a year or two to hone, record, over-dub and over-produce. That's how Janet became what she became with the literal taking "Control" of her career in the '80's to the crafting of a genre in Rhythm Nation. She and Jam/Lewis created one of the last great album arcs of our recorded music era.

And yes I am here for the memories; the nostalgia. Just 17 years ago we missed Janet in Toronto due to her illness and cancellation. Tonight, JFB, has taken care that we will close the loop. We are here to make our own family history. High in the back of GM Place we sit just a few seats away from a couple of girls who get picked to be upgraded to floors, their story videoed and posted the next day on the janetjacskon.com web site. Around us is mostly... empty space. In '89, '92, '98, Ms Jackson would have packed stadia. Tonight, a perfect, sunny September night, there isn't a scalper in site and there are still spaces on the floor. The lower bowl is largely full and there will still be plenty of noise.

Jackson's stage set-up is closer to "Rent" than it is to the Stones. There is no band front and center, for that you have to look right and up a bit. There, in the seats, are 3 platforms for a drummer and a couple of keyboard players. There are no back-up singers. Layers of vocals emanate from a rack of servers in the back of the house. The stage space and the now de rigeur cat-walk-encompassing-an-inner-set-of-floor-seats layout is for dancers and the Star.

Super Nova or Red Dwarf?

Your first view of the Lady is disarming. Janet with a mass of curls thrown up in a Sassoon-style Mohawk and an over-size microphone slung around her neck and face. She wears a corset-like breastplate atop a one-piece jumpsuit type of thing and she looks... She looks out of shape. It is then that my Elvis fears escalate. I am not afraid for me or JFB, I worry about the Star and the no doubt sycophantic bunch of staffers that ego boost her everyday. Maybe she just shouldn't be doing this now. But like the little engine that could she begins to shimmy and the whole thing starts in motion. The dancers swirl -- video-style -- around her and 4 songs zip by in rapid progression, merging into a kind of frenetic mix tape of incompletedness.

Oh my God. It's going to be medley night.

Things get better though. Much better. What I am really there to see is the power of one of the uncontested greats. To watch charm droplets from 300 feet and feel the effect of being totally immersed in them. It's been like that watching Diana Ross live and I had that experience in 2007 with Lucinda Williams. Jackson does not disappoint in that department. You cannot separate the legend from the woman as you watch her. When she strikes a pose she is both a cliche and an icon. In this performance there is a charm in it's "Let's put on a show" air. Jackson is ever the professional but she seems like she is somewhat out of practice, like the pitching great who arrives at training camp expecting to play himself back into shape. This was the first show of the tour and it played like a rehearsal. I expect that by LA, Chicago, Toronto and New York the flat spots will be edited out, the playlist will be pared and this thing will be pumping but what a thrill to see this quirky first show.

For a music show attendee of the old school who expects the singer to sing, it is somewhat unnerving to never know which part of the vocal line Janet is singing. In the midst of multiple part harmonies one hears a "Wheee" or a "Woooo" and you realize that is her, live. She does sing but there is also an awful lot of digital Janet in the mix.

Crescendo

On the slow song set of the night, Jackson wore a slinky red dress and ditched the headset for a handheld microphone. At first her mic technique was an awful mess of blowing and sucking that made Madonna sound like an opera singer. How could this be? She's a Jackson. Marvin Gaye probably gave her mic technique lessons while she was a baby being bounced on uncle Barry Gordy's knee. It just didn't make sense. By the second and third song of the set however things were right again and Janet was there singing with passion and remembering that, for her, it's just like riding a bicycle. "Let's Wait Awhile" was brilliantly phrased and ended to soon. The slow numbers were the first highlight of the night.

Like so many great artists Janet has the innate ability to take "pretty good" CD tracks and elevate them to live classics. "All Nite (Don't Stop)" really gets "sick" in this show and if a live recording from this tour ever surfaces find a place for that tune on your iPod, it just pumps. Sequenced with that was "Rock With U", from the latest CD and they fit very well together. After that the music popped to "Together Again" and perfection reigned. As the last bars of Together Again faded the sound in the arena became deafening and everything else just stopped. It was a perfectly scripted crescendo but even Janet seemed taken aback as the ovation grew and persisted for about 2 minutes. There was one of those "it's good to be back" looks on her face and she seemed more at ease for the rest of the show despite some costuming problems -- see how I avoided the word "malfunction" -- later on. For old folks like me she did some old songs, Young Love and Say You Do which was a staple of my radio and club mixes back in 1982.

Song after song, the show just builds and builds but it also goes crash from time to time. Part of the problem is the sheer weight of tunes, there were 37 songs on the set list and, while the die hard fans wanted to hear all of them, it's just too many songs. Imagine U2 coming out and running through New Years Day, Pride, Where the Streets Have No Name and She Moves in Mysterious Ways in a 2 minute medley. It just wouldn't happen and Janet Jackson should not be participating in the devaluation of her own hits. Another problem is what I call "this Jackson interlude thing". What's with the Star War-sy, Planet Xylon goofy video bits between costume changes? And there's a very strange screaming closing before the ovation that's just completely wrong. A pick-the-guy-out-of-the-audience-and-humiliate-him routine with cartoon sado-masochism ran way too long and just got boring. Hopefully this gets tightened up when they review the show and hit a few more cities.

And the Kitchen Sink

Janet throws everything and the kitchen sink into the show. The excess, curiously, exposes a humanity through all the high-techery and MTV-style dancing because it's not a perfect show. We left scratching our heads but talked more and more about it that night and the next day. Certain songs and moments from the night keep looping back and that's what you want; a new memory and a family moment we'll remember for the rest of our lives.

There still are live musical experiences that get me piqued.

I remember seeing Al "Year of the Cat" Stewart in 1977 and marvelled at how he was able to get a good sound out of the athletic complex at McMaster University. It was a teenage musical dream. He was a bona fide, big time "recording artist" and he was in my college town with his Spanish Border and Road to Moscow audio visual extravaganza.

Just recently -- and 30 years later, no less -- it was Lucinda Williams at the Jube (the Jubilee Theatre at SAIT). So how was the show? Well the Calgary Herald review (which will only be freely available for 30 days; 'cause after all newspaper prose has always been more valuable after the birds read it) and an op-ed piece (that's right, an op-ed piece?!) from the same fish wrap were pretty much spot on. You are, however, not reading this because you wanted affirmation from me that a mere newspaper review was okay. You are reading this -- I bet it's three years later and you've just done a search -- because you are a pure Lu fan.

Me? I'm a johnny-come-lately. I discovered Lu painting my house a few years ago when the satellite music service playing "adult oriented contempory" suddenly became interesting when "Righteously" hit the woofer. I stopped painting, got a pen, wrote down the artist name and went to buy the CD. It was, coincidently, the last CD I bought; everything since has been purchased over the net which no doubt makes me enemy number one to wigged out music exec grand-dads who fondly remember piano rolls. Okay, I did know "Passionate Kisses" but I had no idea that Mary Chapin Carpenter's hit was a Lucinda Williams song.

Fast forward to February 14th of this year and I pantingly parted with my money so that I could download "West" on its first day of release; as if DRM'ed AAC's could be collector's items. Wow what a record, er, recording. And fast forward again to the live Lu on June 14th singing "Come On" and "Unsuffer Me" from the West release with such spittin', snarly power that it makes the recording sound almost tame. Lucinda Williams is an American gift. An artist of such technique and attitude that she refines; in fact, redefines a genre. The antithesis of Nashville -- the George Bush of American country crap -- Lucinda is Louisiana raw and Austin authentic; she is the sweetest, perfectionist country punk to wield a guitar in years. I heart Bonnie Raitt but she is almost Hollywood in comparison to Lucinda's pure country-folk-punk. Emmy Lou Harris is close but only Lucinda is America's best song writer and "a righteous singer" .

As I write this, she is heading back to the lower 48; catch a show if you can. You'll marvel at her perfect balance between nervous jitter and musical exuberance. You will wonder how it is that she can charm with that Arkansan-Louisiana-Texas drawl one minute and cut loose with emotional venom the next. You'll love the band and especially Doug Pettibone's guitar. Lucinda is a mid-50's rocking wonder. If only Bob Dylan had the stuff she has now.

Lucinda's final gift of the night was her performance of Theivery Inc's / Flaming Lips "Marching the Hate Machines into the Sun". I bought it on iTunes the next day.

Jennifer Hudson is a cinematic delight and sonic wonder but prior to 2006 one of the greatest songs of our age was the sole property of one artist. Sure, hundreds have sung the role in revivals, reviews, at clubs and amateur productions. Yes, it has been recorded by others but only one woman in history has the definitive, the undeniable, the ultimate rendering.

That woman is Jennifer Holliday.

I remember hearing the record for the first time early in 1982 at the request of a friend who was an inveterate music buyer. He bought everything and he raved about everything. Having heard his admonitions in the past I figured the record was probably okay but I distinctly remember being staggered the first time I heard Jennifer Holliday singing And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going. You remember things about your life and your situation when you hear your favourite music. Holliday set me in an era the first time I heard the song. I knew this was probably the most powerful performance I had heard on record to that point in my life. I liked Ms. Ross, I had heard Billie Holliday, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha, dozens of others. It was an era of anthemic singers; Grace Jones, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, Cheryl Lynn, etc., etc. etc. Holliday, with one song -- a single recording -- set a new bar.

Content in this post originates from www.bradfordgibson.net.

What must have the first renderings of Holliday's interpretation sounded like? Jennifer Hudson has said that Henry Krieger taught her the song one on one at the piano "just like he did with Jennifer Holliday". Aside from the terror of knowing that for Hudson, just imagine how those first few run-throughs must have developed. In the late '70's and early '80's Krieger and Bennet had something in mind for the song -- and while Nell Carter was an early candidate for Effie -- they knew they needed Holliday to do it; she walked out on work-shops at least twice and they kept bringing her back. Performance rarely gets a perfect combination of lyric, melody, tutelage and interpretation. Who's idea was it that Holliday's interpretation would literally span the entire performance genre of American music in 4 minutes? It's almost preposterous to think they would have tried and yet it's there; devotional, soul, rock, swing, jazz, blues. Check out how Holliday is able change gears at the 2:07 mark in the original cast recording to go from blues to a blistering soul as she emotes "Tear down the mountains, Yell, scream and shout." The song begins with three symbolic bell-like tolls and cascades to a tumultuous torrent with Holliday's plaintive repeat of the title phrase at the 2:27 mark -- it is a spine tingling moment of the most raw and dynamic energy ever laid down on a track.

Holliday is literally living the song and we believe her every time we hear it.

There are flashes of great art in Dreamgirls that leave the student slack-jawed with awe. The movie is framed by one such piece that is both perfect in its symmetry and poetic with its foreshadowing. At the start of Dreamgirls four sisters sing together at a talent show, they are not the Dreamgirls. At the end of the movie we see four different women -- four "sistahs" -- singing together and they are no longer the Dreamgirls; they are saying goodbye. The movie says hello and goodbye with startling clarity and a clear sense of purpose. This movie has been made with a goal in mind and with devotion to the source material. Another elegant touch can be found in the lyrical twist built into the two versions of "One Night Only". In Effie's offering, she sings about how her lover of one night does not have any more time for her. In the Dreams rendition by Deena Jones, the lyric is turned on its ear; now it is the singer, Deena, who doesn't have any more than one night for her latest conquest. While this touch does exist in the original Broadway musical, we would expect Hollywood to squelch a detail like this -- they are lacking in so much of what we watch in movies now -- it almost seems like a bonus when somebody bothers to put the effort into making the small touches that render real symbolism in the story.

Content in this post originates from www.bradfordgibson.net.

One of the performers who seems so willing to accept the significance and depth of the roles in Dreamgirls is Eddie Murphy. Murphy has astounded for years with his ease and flow on screen and yet he has never appeared in anything great. James "Thunder" Early is Murphy's greatest role, a perfect showcase for a man who should have and should be taking better parts. Murphy almost succeeds in erasing his most questionable choices of roles with his redemptive performance. His Early is tragic, sympathetic and conflictingly comedic. Murphy's skill is in his understanding and ultimate surrender to the part; it stands in perfect contradiction to the dumb-founded Jamie Foxx, who, as in Jarhead, seems utterly incapable of determining what he is doing; in the part, on screen and in the overall context of the story.

A similar criticism has been leveled at the acting ingenue Beyonce. Here, however, Condon found the right person. Beyonce's on-screen quizzical looks perfectly fit the climbing ambitions of the thin and "perfect" Deena. Beyonce never comes close to establishing a relationship with her audience beyond the lense, she is in love with the camera and herself, unwittingly she plays a uniquely correct Deena. Beyonce's reedy voice and undisciplined lack of breath control have been superbly exploited by the director and musical producers.

In contrast Jennifer Hudson does not even seem to notice the camera, she connects and offers compelling visuals throughout the movie. Hudson's voice is also exemplary, although her ability to interpret some of the songs is questionable. Where her interpretation and power could not encompass the universe of the original Dreamgirls themes, the cinematography steps in to render a new interpretation. In the later parts of the And I'm Telling You... scene, a flat-footed, bare legged and bruised Hudson performs for an empty room. Amidst the mirrors, the lights, the stage Hudson is not an iconic performer, she becomes a frail and angry child in an adult body. She is scorned and scornful at the same time and takes And I'm Telling You in a more personal direction. It has been reported that four versions of the song were interpreted by Hudson, the team chose the right one for her on screen. In all, Dreamgirls fulfills an essential requirement for great art, it creates a cohesive link between the story, the lyrics, the music, the times and its cast. Dreamgirls, the movie combines smaller pieces of art and design into a more complete whole.

Tomorrow: The Jennifer

dreamgirls

In an industry so utterly devoid of an ethical center, a humanistic soul and a purposeful mission, Dreamgirls astounds with an artful combination of flash, brilliance and truth amidst a sea of dis-belief suspending artifices. Why shouldn't it? Dreamgirls is ostensibly about the entertainment industry and about the only thing the entertainment industry ever gets right is itself. Remember how perfect everything felt about the era in Cameron Crowe's, Almost Famous? Well Dreamgirls is a genre picture like that with nearly maniacal dedication to art and symbolism thrown in for good measure.

Content in this post originates from www.bradfordgibson.net.

Of course there's more to Dreamgirls than the Hollywood treatment the original musical gets. There is, of course, the terribly important, gut wrenchingly important, important importance of it all against the back-drop of the greatest disease culling artistic terror since the Black Death. Can we ignore what Jennifer Holliday's monumental rendering of And I'm Telling You... has come to symbolize with the passing years? Rendered in honour of the memories of both lyricist Tom Eyen and director Michael Bennett it has become an anthem of love and loss but posited against an era of AIDS deaths it is an anthem. To ignore what Dreamgirls has meant to so many communities -- from opening night in 1981 -- and subsequently, to everyone that has been touched in some way by AIDS -- which is everyone -- would be to deny truth.

Now that we no longer live in the age of the blockbuster, Dreamgirls is as close as we can get to knowing that a community of artists, technicians, producers and financiers can still execute on a real dream. A big dream. Dreamgirls carries within it a reasonable facsimile of historic truth with the punch of artistic symbolism. We can no longer posit about what it might have done if released "on time" in 1984 or 1987 or 1991 or 1995. It didn't get released because it wasn't made then. We can't stop to think about how this picture compares in box office to Grease or Sound of Music or West Side Story because it has been released now, in the age of the long tail, the first era after hits were made. Somehow it seems fitting and with the silver anniversary of the Broadway musical a distant memory for many of us and completely unknown to a large percentage of its viewing audience, Dreamgirls -- the movie -- now delivers context to a different era. Think of how different it is. How many of us would have imagined the startling change in acceptance of gay marriage and adoption there has been. For most of us in Western societies -- save for America -- it doesn't matter anymore and it never should have. So Dreamgirls is about a memory of how it was; for women in the the '60's and the entertainment industry, for African Americans, for other minorities. It's all a memory isn't it? Things are better now aren't they? Say that and think of the things that still don't make any sense. The pitiful official response to tens of thousands stranded in New Orleans. The unwillingness to be moralistic in the Sudan while engaging with gusto elsewhere. The persecution of legitimate travelers and legal immigrants against a back-drop of nationally sponsored religious fervours. No, there really is nothing left for the classic story of Dreamgirls to tell us anymore, is there?

Tomorrow: Symbolism and Performance in Dreamgirls, the Movie

dreamgirls

From today through Wed. Feb. 21, I'll be taking a look at Dreamgirls, the show, the movie and the art. Today we kick off with an overview and a perspective on Dreamgirls rebuke by members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

In 1981 Michael Bennett brought Henry Krieger's and Tom Eyen's Dreamgirls to life after a period of workshopping in the late 1970's. For Bennett, Dreamgirls was not a necessary ingredient to define a successful career; A Chorus Line had cemented that, but it became the determinant in defining his greatness on Broadway. Dreamgirls did not win Best Musical at the 1982 Tony Awards but who hums songs from Nine in the shower these days? Within a couple of years of its opening, Dreamgirls had established itself as the premier musical of its era and stands as one of the greatest American musicals of the last 30 years.

Content in this post originates from www.bradfordgibson.net.

Dreamgirls the movie has lived as a promise since the early '80's. While various production attempts have been launched only one has succeeded in creating a finished product. As the 25th anniversary of the musical loomed, David Geffen leased the rights of Dreamgirls to director Bill Condon. The results speak for themselves. While most movie musicals of the past 25 to 30 years have been disappointing, Dreamgirls the movie, captures both the artifice and the attitude of the era it represents as well as the era in which it was produced. There will be no Best Picture award for Dreamgirls at the Oscars in 2007 but good art does not need an Oscar. Too often, the Oscar does not represent the epitome of art or creative insight. The Oscars exist in a complex web of political wrangling and PR hype. This year, Dreamgirls hype machine went overboard and caught a backlash from Academy members. One can only be thankful that the PR flacks cannot retroactively alter the results on screen.

It is probably worth reflecting upon why the shameful huckstering of Dreamgirls PR team was necessary. Why were so many put off by the intensive lobbying and the carpet bombing of the ads, the notices and the promos? In 1983, the Dreamgirls PR campaign would probably have caught fire but it was so relentlessly old school and so completely ignorant of modern social interactivity that it just smacked of arrogance. That said there were some master strokes in the concepts, one being the payment of all performance royalties by Dreamworks for amateur companies performing Dreamgirls in 2006. In the final analysis however, PR blather resulted in a net loss for an astonishing piece of big box office art. As consumers, we are not the losers as we still got to see the picture and can return again and again. No, only the star making machinery of Geffen's world is the loser and I scarcely think the Ferraris will be repossessed in anyone's driveway on Mulholland as result of going over the top of even Hollywood's elongated tolerance for marketing guff. So let's forget the Oscar's and look at the art.

Tomorrow: Dreamgirls, Hollywood and Art

dreamgirls

Sometime between today -- Jan 2, 2007 -- and the 2007 Academy Awards I will be declaring Dreamgirls Week at bradfordgibson.net.

Now for those of you who expect this site to be all about technology, business and podcasting... well it's my personal site too and you know that I have made forays into the musical realm before. I still get a significant number of site hits from the Google search string "I want to write a musical".

Before I dip my toe into the Dream Girls water I need your help. If you want to contribute then please get in touch with me. I'm talking to sound gurus like Derek K Miller (see you at Northern Voice 2007), food/wine/cinema critics like Ethan Johnson (whose simple "wow" is high praise indeed) and media divas like Leesa Barnes. This is my open casting call for essays and scholarship on one of the greatest artistic events of our lifetimes. How about some thought being put to:

Or if you can't hack the academic stuff, try comparing it to other earthquakes like Saturday Night Fever, Les Miserables or the birth of Jazz. If by some troubled route you know it's big but you just don't like it... well okay, I want to hear about that too.

And I'm Telling You, Go now and do your research. I am available by way of comment here, the "feedback" menu choice at the web site or GollyGeeMail... thebradcast... then use the at symbol then type in Gmail period com.

Bob Dylan is not one of my favourites. I remember seeing him in the 80's at a Hamilton concert. It was a short, perfunctory, noisy and unintelligible wash of indiscernible nonsense. Not even the "hits" were recognizable. I wondered at the time why he bothered; whether he even cared anymore. Still, the guy has a heart and head for recorded sound that is legendary. Dylan moved musical styles and changed tastes. While the Dylan I saw live was abysmal, another Dylan thought about the construction of his records. He has and continues to work on the complete package -- music with words, words and sound.

Dylan on sound from a recent Rolling Stone interview:
"You do the best you can, you fight that technology in all kinds of ways, but I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really. You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like -- static."

I have been thinking, feeling and talking about this for the past couple of years. Current recorded music is really awful. People under 30 look at me like I'm insane. In some small way I wonder if this is one of the motivations behind "Big" music being so aggressive with their back catalogs; the current stuff is just so badly recorded it has a shelf life measured in months.

Recently JFB sent me a David Gray CD for my birthday. Gray's songs are interesting, his voice is curious and the music may be moving. The problem? The sound on the record -- the production, the editing, the mix, the tonal balance -- is positively chainsaw-like.

The last great pop/rock record that was made was U2's Achtung Baby. Ironically that record was made with the intent of deliberately using "bad" sound. Lanois and Eno played with the concept of making harsh sounds work. Initially the group thought they could capture the big sound of the Berlin Hansa studio in the record but the only thing that came out of that session was "One"; their greatest song. Back in Ireland it was all electronics and distortion. The real secret of why that record works is how they used electronics. Lanois loves analog reverb (check out what he's done with Emmylou Harris) and he understands analog recording from his days working with Doidge; first in the basement in Ancaster and then later at Grant Avenue. Eno worked with analog tape loops on some of his strangest sessions with Lanois at Grant Avenue. Achtung Baby is avant garde experimental sound married to pop band power. It was the high watermark for pop recording and all these years laters stands as a marker for the end of great production in popular music. The concept was so effusive that it lent itself to visual art and effects that became the greatest concert spectacle of its era, the ZooTV tour.

What Dylan so plaintively expresses is nothing short of the end of an era. Not only is "good" sound dead; but so too is rock and roll. We are on the other side of the "Rock Era" and we have no sonic landscape to replace it with.

More to come...

If you have more than fond memories of your past then perhaps you are not particularly good at looking forward. The past is a great learning tool and we've all heard the old saw about history repeating itself blah, blah, blah. There is, however, a great distinction to be made between respectful admiration of our past and delusional desires to get back to it.

From an AP dispatch today by Brian Charlton that quotes Ed "Punch" Andrews, manager for both Kid Rock and Bob Seger -- both of whom continue to resist release of their music to mainstream on-line services --

"We're hoping at some point albums become important again like they were in the past 30 years."

(A version also found here)

Here's what I'm hoping. That Seger's forthcoming album might be good for a change. Of course I won't be listening until I can legitimately download two or three songs first. Sorry Punch, sorry Bob.

I'm a Hollywood Nights '70's guy but I don't listen to "albums" anymore. Good on you Bob for approaching your album making in a sincere way but you know what? Cave paintings are interesting too and nobody is doing it anymore. You may be waiting a long time.