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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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April 26, 2003
Tatu's music is actually pretty good
In fairness, I feel it necessary to say a couple of words in defense of Tatu.
They come out of the box as a novelty act, two young Russian lesbians who sing- and like making out in public. OK, so they're basically a couple of hookers. Trevor Horn has something to do with this, and I doubt they have any songwriting credits on their album. They're just trying to get rich and famous. They lack artistic credibility, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, well somebody wrote them at least one hot song. "All the Things She Said" really works. It is an outstanding piece of music. There's an actual SONG underneath the throbbing synthesizers and all. They have a strong basic melodic hook under "all the things she said running through my head". The basic hook gets more than credible development in the verse.
I generally don't care that much for synth-pop type productions, but this one works. The music throbs quite nicely. They have some good dynamics in the production; it builds up and drops back a little, and comes in for the big finish. The vocal performance specifically comes out pretty convincing. I'm not saying they're the Supremes or anything. However, it's a little hard to pick out through the production, but at least one of these girls seems to be a better actual singer than Britney Spears, if not Diana Ross. I find the production emotionally convincing.
Somebody managed to get some interesting emotions communicated in this product. Emotional communication being a big point of music, they have legitimately accomplished the main task. They manage to put across some combination of breathless sexual turn on, and some confusion and yearning. It's really quite good if you'll give it a fair listen.
I note that I hunted down the song on a Blogcritic's recommendation with no foreknowledge of any kind other than the name of the group and title of the song. I listened to it several times in a mix tape without paying overly close attention, just absorbing the tune and the sound. I was well into digging the song before I picked up on the lesbian gimmick. That, of course, did nothing to dissuade my interest. The video (included on the CD) was nicely thought out, giving some interesting dramatic context to the basic prurient interest of watching the girls make out. I've been less impressed with other songs from their album, but even those represent competent pop songcraft.
You may just not dig on this style of music. As a conservative Christian, you can decide to be offended by the lesbian schtick. As a good left winger, you may decide to be offended by their crass commercialism.
However, by any fair aesthetic standard, the hit single represents at least better than average pop music.
posted by Al at 4/26/2003 02:16:00 PM
Tatu vs Dixie Chicks
From this photo
you might think that the Dixie Chicks are the hottest lesbo act going in the music business.
Not so fast, say the girls of Tatu. Even just the casual photo with this news story makes me feel all funny.
No, but that's not all. They're actively publicly recruiting the youngest legal girls they can, as young as 14, for a nude photo shoot for their next album cover. Holy spine-tingling publicity stunt, Batman!
Now how exactly are the Dixie Chicks going to top this?
Wait, wait. Ladies. There's no need to argue. Maybe you could work together, a win-win cross-marketing sensation. You could all get together for a big pay-per-view special that would surely break box-office records.
Grrl power!
Dixie Chicks
DIXIE CHICKS PHOTOS 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
"Deep political thoughts" of the Dixie Chicks Al Barger was the first cat to cuss the Dixie Chicks out on the internet! (Mommy is SO proud!)
I hate the Dixie Chicks more than anyone
Tatu vs the Dixie Chicks
Just asking for it
Merle Haggard defends the Dixie Chicks
I hate you- please come back
Single Review: "Not Ready to Make Nice"
The Dixie Chicks think they're Andy Kaufman
The Dixie Chicks Fake Victimhood
Al's Dixie Chick page mailbagLabels: dixie_chicks
posted by Al at 4/26/2003 12:54:00 AM
Criticism 101
Distinguishing the particulars of a topic rates as the most basic element of aesthetics (art criticism), or of philosophy generally. Picking apart the quality of an underlying melody of a lead vocal, versus the harmonic and production elements- that's what critics DO.
I was perhaps slightly hurt, then, by this accusation in the comments to a Blogcritics post: "Al Barger pretty much confines his jabbering to the subject of liberal perfidy, and he's one of the worst about sticking political screeds into the review categories."
Really. I think I'm one of the BEST. If you look carefully, I've repeatedly tried to address art that has political content, trying to distinguish between the artistic versus political merits of a song or movie. Note for example this positive review of John Mellencamp's new protest song.
Now, dissecting and mocking liberal perfidy is certainly a legitimate and highly entertaining philosophical sport. I like to think that I write about other things as well, but liberals need knocked around. However, I would take it as a significant personal insult to be accused of inability to make even a basic distinction between art and politics. Those are whole separate branches of philosophy. I'd sure hate to thing that I am so blinded by political passion as to not be able to appreciate the skill, craft and passion of a good song or movie just because the author is a liberal.
Liking or disliking a song or movie just because it presents a political stance that you agree or disagree with shows shallowness of artistic judgment. If a song has a good tune and is emotionally convincing, I don't have to agree with any secondary political sentiments.
Similarly, I'm known to listen to a fair amount of various types of gospel music. Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers really do it for me. Elvis gospel, Bob Dylan, even Jimmy Swaggart and Bach get my attention. I won't quite go so far as to say that I'm absolutely sure there is no beyond, but I'm certainly no kind of believer. Yet much of the world's greatest and most meaningful music has been created as religious expression. There is emotional truth in the Hallelujah Chorus that transcends the specific issue of the truth value of Christianity.
Similarly, no code of correct political views will cause me to dismiss so compelling a jam as "London Calling." This rocks, no matter what kind of commie foolishness the boys were buying into. Likewise, the fact that Rush are Ayn Rand fans ain't going to make me puff them up into being major-league talent. They're just not that good.
Now HOW someone presents their political views in art is a fair topic of criticism. The lyrics of the Beastie Boys "World Gone Mad" just suck. They are a weak and boring scattershot expression of their weak and boring outlook, besides any other issues. It's just not a good example of craftmanship. On the other hand, the lyrics of Tracy Chapman's "Talking About a Revolution" present a much more interesting and skillfully drawn picture, even though the socialist revolution thing she is describing is at some point just silly.
The fullest and truest appeciation of life and art comes from developing careful intellectual understanding of things. Being able to distinguish between good melody (or story or painting) and good politics should be considered a basic rudimentary issue for any intelligent person.
posted by Al at 4/26/2003 12:35:00 AM
April 25, 2003
Now the Dixie Chicks are just asking for it
Like the old maid aunt in Elvis Costello's classic song, "I almost had a weakness." I was just about starting to feel bad for the Dixie Chicks getting continuing grief over a couple of stupid comments back in the long ago days before the war. Sure Natalie Maines was talking foolishness, but people have vandalized their property and made threats and organized boycotts. Damn, people, get a life already.
Then they go and do this:
Their considered response to this controversy is a softcore lesbian photo shoot for the cover of Entertainment Weekly. This amounts to a cheesy Madonna-style publicity stunt.
They have positively embraced the controversy. This photo amounts to a giant raised middle finger to their critics. Oh wait, that's not their middle finger, that's me...
Understand that this is not a rebuke. Hell, they look like they're just seconds away from filming the first Dixie Chicks video ever that I would be interested in watching.
Even beyond the amusing titillation though, I much prefer this to whining. Instead of complaining and backtracking, they have chosen to make a frontal assault. They have chosen to positively exploit this controversy for publicity and marketing. You go girls!
However, with this photo they have pretty much given up any right to bitch about people overreacting. The thing was dying down, and now they have purposely picked it up- and raised it to a whole new level. Does Miss Emily intend this picture to disprove the rude folks who have called them "dixie sluts"?
None of this constitutes any kind of a serious political statement or argument, mind you. I vaguely suspect that they want us to think that this picture constitutes some kind of significant political argument or artistic statement or something. It does not, in fact. It's just naked chicks. And I'm OK with that. :)
It's a publicity stunt. It might backfire and cause them to only sell 2 copies of their next album, or it might make a big splash and sell them 20 million albums. Bully for them. This little play is more interesting than any of their homogenized, pre-processed country cheese music product.
I just don't want to hear any whining if they get pickets at their concerts. After all, they're sending out an engraved invitation.
Dixie Chicks
DIXIE CHICKS PHOTOS 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
"Deep political thoughts" of the Dixie Chicks Al Barger was the first cat to cuss the Dixie Chicks out on the internet! (Mommy is SO proud!)
I hate the Dixie Chicks more than anyone
Tatu vs the Dixie Chicks
Just asking for it
Merle Haggard defends the Dixie Chicks
I hate you- please come back
Single Review: "Not Ready to Make Nice"
The Dixie Chicks think they're Andy Kaufman
The Dixie Chicks Fake Victimhood
Al's Dixie Chick page mailbagLabels: country_music, dixie_chicks
posted by Al at 4/25/2003 06:54:00 PM
Nike: Free speech champions
Rand knows I love my Kazaa, but there brews a Supreme Court case on free speech considerably more important than P2P. In the case of Nike v. Kasky, No. 02-575, the Supreme Court could strike a big blow for free speech. Nike has been screwed with for five years under unconstitutional laws regarding "commercial speech" simply for making statements and taking out ads to defend themselves against charges of bad labor practices.
Solicitor General Ted Olson, representing the Bush administration, has suggested sidestepping the basic underlying issue of whether Nike was engaging in First Amendment free speech, but give Nike the ruling on other legal grounds. Boo, hiss. Chickenshit.
The court could decide the case on perhaps several different types of grounds, but the most basic one calling out to them is the artificial legal distinction between protected free speech versus somehow less protected commercial speech. Since the 1942 Valentine v. Chrestensen decision, the court has sort of halfway drifted toward accepting the commified idea that free speech protections do not apply to any person or group who might conceivably in any way make a buck from what they are saying. The constitution details no such distinction. To put it differently, commie-types just made it up out of the air. Deroy Murdock has more HERE.
The most obviously egregious example of how this false distinction harms the public comes from the pharmaceutical industry. Drug manufacturers are prohibited from advertising the results of studies from themselves or other independent groups of benefits that can be derived from using their drugs other than ones formally recognized by the FDA. Doctors and patients get deprived of true and highly useful information. The legal excuse justifying the government's right to censor them is simply that the drug companies might profit from spreading this (true and accurate) information. This is a more egregious violation of civil liberties, one with worse impact on the public, than about anything involved in the dreaded Patriot Act.
Commie left wingers who don't like granting Nike free speech parity might take into consideration what kind of stick this arbitrary distinction represents, and how it can come back to bite you in the ass. Compared to the indirect commercial interest of the specific facts of the Nike case, Eminem records are obviously HIGHLY commercial speech. He's just saying that stuff to make money, so why shouldn't he be subject to reasonable commercial restrictions as to what he can say just like for Nike or drug manufacturers?
In this Nike case, the court could just take a big broom and make a clean sweep. Just say the obvious and true thing that speech is speech, a press is a press. It would clarify and simplify a great many matters, and we would have more freedom.
posted by Al at 4/25/2003 05:22:00 PM
April 23, 2003
I suppose this makes me a homophobe
It works out like this: If you don't think the Supreme Court should just make up some "constitutional right" to homosexual behavior, then you are a HOMOPHOBE and unfit for public service. Senator Rick Santorum has discovered this in the last couple of days.
Here's the main offending Santorum quote from an interview with the Associated Press: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
Because of this quote, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has called for Santorum to be ousted from his leadership post. Seriously. Of course, Santorum's perfectly reasonable response that he was talking specifically about the merits of a legal case and was not saying anything about homosexuals one way or another did not mollify the Democrats.
Perhaps some of the problem can be gleaned from this quote attributed by ABC to a "leading gay activist" who says, "Question: can a politician assert that gay sex ought not be 'elevated' to the protection of a constitutional right without being considered homophobic? No � the issue is do gay people have the same right to privacy as heterosexual people do."
The only likely place you could even try to get this out of the actual constitution would be the 9th Amendment, which says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." However, this would go to Santorum's point. You'd have all kinds of rights. You'd have a right to take drugs, or do all kinds of things. The courts have never been real big on the 9th Amendment, and would certainly be interpreting it in a highly selective way to push a personal political agenda on the part of the judges.
Now, I'm all in favor of homosexuals, and legalizing drugs, and a lot of other things. It's just not the job of the courts to do those things. They are supposed to be the least powerful branch of the government, as they are the branch least answerable to the people. If you want special protections and favor, then take it to the legislative branches that make the laws.
At about this point, we're supposed to be walking on eggshells to try to show how tolerant and understanding we are. Mostly this is to avoid even, as they say, the appearance of impropriety. However, stuff such as this quote does not make me more inclined to appeasement or mollification. "It was deeply offensive," said Mike Mahler, the co-editor of Erie Gay News. "It was plain, flat-out mean. There is just no other word for it. He should step down." This dishonest political grasping does not make me inclined to some kind of brotherly outreach. No, this makes me inclined to want to slap Mahler so hard that the penis falls out of his mouth.
Yeah, I can already hear the machinery gearing up. They'll be running ads against Santorum in his next election bid about how he was practically right there on the other side of the country helping to crucify poor Matthew Shepherd.
It's a damned sad state of affairs that questioning the propriety of legislating from the bench can get you tarred and feathered like this. I don't like Rick Santorum. Best I can tell, he's just another sleazy politician. However, this kind of cheap moral intimidation that the Democratic queer nation is pushing rates far worse than anything Santorum has done in life.
It speaks just as badly of the press that these charges are presented as some kind of even arguably reasonable complaint. They do not deserve to have their complaints presented as one side of a reasonable debate. They are transparently nothing of the kind. The complainants deserve nothing but ridicule.
posted by Al at 4/23/2003 03:22:00 PM
Yeah, they got me
Running away? You yellow . . .
What Monty Python Character are you?
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posted by Al at 4/23/2003 11:41:00 AM
Blog on, brothers
The Oxblog has been publishing for one year today. Happy blog birthday!
posted by Al at 4/23/2003 11:40:00 AM
April 22, 2003
You go girl!
Today is the 2nd anniversary of Meryl Yourish's most excellent and thoughtful weblog. Happy blog birthday!
She has an interesting brief history of the thought and evolution of her writing. If you've never been to her site, you're missing out.
posted by Al at 4/22/2003 03:23:00 PM
April 21, 2003
Lucretius: Scientist, philosopher, poet
On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura) holds a unique place in the Western literary canon. It is a passionate epic romantic poem attempting to explain the underlying workings of the whole universe.
Lucretius was writing this masterpiece in Latin a few decades BC. It is built on the proto-naturalistic scientific philosophy of Epicurus. This work is considered by many to be the best presentation anywhere of the philosophical thought of Epicurus.
They placed a lot of emphasis on denying the existence of gods or an afterlife. In the single most important point of their thought as far as its influence on me personally, Lucretius made a big point that essentially fear of hell, of being punished in some afterlife, is the biggest source of unnecessary emotional trauma for our species. Contrary to common belief, religion is really mostly NOT in fact a source of comfort, but of horrible and unnecessary trauma.
Let us take this moment to correct a basic misunderstanding about Epicurus. The word "epicurean" now usually gets used as an adjective to indicate hedonism. Epicurus or Lucretius were atheists, and thus believed in taking your pleasures in this life and body. However, they would not have advocated wild hedonism, with likely pain consequences that would outweigh the trivial passing moment of fun. In other words, the Epicurean ideal would not be drunken debauchery, but a nice picnic by the lake- perhaps leading to enjoying a good book under a shade tree while dipping your feet in the cool water. Mmm.
Lucretius attempted to explain the whole universe in rational, empirical scientific terms. Atoms and void exist, and you go from there. One particularly interesting theory here is the "swerve of the atom." This molecular theory of spontaneous random action at the molecular level gets carried forward to eventually explain human free will.
It's beautiful poetry, and a nice view of the emerging idea of scientific empiricism. It's a wonder even simply to appreciate the scope of the author's ambition.
posted by Al at 4/21/2003 09:13:00 PM
April 20, 2003
Malkovich?
posted by Al at 4/20/2003 10:49:00 PM
If only Mencken were here to field this one
Wow, I have got to give Ingrid Newkirk of PETA some props here. Her last will and testament sounds like some kind of odd, sick literary achievement. This is some kind of world record in the annals of self-abasement:
Ms Newkirk, founder and president of the radical group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), has decreed in HER WILL that a portion of her body (she doesn't specify which) should be barbecued as a protest against "fleshfoods". She also wants her feet to be turned into ornaments to remind the world of the "depravity" of using animals in a such a fashion.
And that's not all. Ms Newkirk has also laid down that part of her skin be turned into a leather product to show that human skin and animal skin are the same thing and that neither is a "fabric". Ms Newkirk's will also holds bequests to two people. One is the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, who can expected to receive both her eyes, appropriately mounted, as a message that Peta will continue to watch the agency until it stops using animals in experiments.
The second beneficiary is Kenneth Feld, owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He can expect to receive her pointing finger to stand as "the greatest accusation on Earth" on behalf of animals used for public entertainment.
Neither Kurt Cobain nor Woody Allen ever came close to such a public expression of self-hatred as this. Consider the scene of Ms. Newkirk sitting around brainstorming on all the grotesque ways in which she could have her corpse ritually desecrated. What could possibly be going on in her mind?
Yet at the same time, note the towering, quivering spasms of self-righteousness. Not even Dana Carvey's Church Lady would think to literally have her index finger mounted to board, permanently pointing in accusation.
Wow. I like to think I have some modest talent as a satirist, but she's far beyond my humble abilities. Nay, Saturday Night Live could not parody this chick. Verily I say, even Trey Parker and Matt Stone at South Park could not exaggerate or satirize Ms Newkirk. What can you say to even TRY to mock her? She's really raised the bar.
OK, I got one little thing. So she's going to have part of her body barbecued "in protest against fleshfoods." She should have added, "Take, eat. This is my body." Rim shot.
It would take a true master to do her justice. If only ol' HL Mencken were still around.
posted by Al at 4/20/2003 01:32:00 AM
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