CD REVIEW: Pop Stars Speak on the People’s Behalf

by Daniel Kalder

So anyway, last week I was asked to review the accompanying CD for tonight’s upcoming The People Speak documentary. Mindful of my journalistic duty, I immediately emailed the good folks at Verve Music Group asking for a review copy. Alas, they never got back to me. Thus as I certainly wasn’t going to spend any of my own ca$h on something that featured knuckle-headed dullard Eddie Vedder (the Sean Penn of the rock music world) covering Dylan, I was forced to review the 25 second previews on Amazon instead. So here goes:

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Track 1: Do Re Mi by Bob Dylan: I used to have the Woody Guthrie version of this song on my iPod. After about three years I noticed I had played it twice, so I swiftly deleted it along with the rest of the incredibly tedious ‘Pastures of Plenty’ CD. From the brief snatch I heard of Dylan’s version he’s rasping away as usual, but it still sounds better than the original, which is rotten.

Q: Didn’t Dylan explicitly distance himself from this whole protest thing in his memoir published a few years back?

A: Yes he did.

Track 2: The Ghost of Tom Joad by Bruce Springsteen: I’ve always found the boss’s aching sincerity difficult to swallow. Here it goes down a lot easier, because it ends faster.

Track 3: Masters of War: This is a Dylan original, another track that used to live on my iPod deleted due to its pointlessness. I actually felt embarrassed whenever Dylan’s interminable rant came up on shuffle. It always conjured up hideous images of the bearded children of prosperity playing at radicalism in the 1960s. Mr. Vedder takes the MTV unplugged approach to underscore his sincerity. Grrr! He’s angry!

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Track 4: Dear Mr. President: This is by ‘P!nk’ who used to be married to a skateboarder or a motocross rider or something like that, and who once had a hit about starting parties. In fact, I remember this song: it is an original ‘P!nk’ composition from one of her more recent albums, a savage critique of the Antichrist George W. Bush, in which she addresses the former president thus:

I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?

Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep.

Apparently she never sent the questions to Mr. Bush because his answers do not appear in the text of the song- which is sh!t, needless to say.

Track 5: Sail Away: Ah yes, Randy Newman. I believe he did that #hilarious# song about dwarfs. Some people like him. As for me, a friend once lent me a CD of a musical Newman had written about Faust that was so achingly unfunny it killed my ability to listen to his contrived crooning, even when he’s singing Disney theme songs. Still at least he’s playing a piano, and not doing that ultra-hackneyed earnest, soulful warble over solo acoustic guitar thing designed to convey SINCERITY like the preceding three artists.

Track 6: American Terrorist: The performer is a gentleman who goes by the name of Lupe Fiasco. I just checked, and his real name is actually Wasalu Muhammad Jaco which is much more exciting. The song title is a bit of a red flag, and in the Amazon snippet I noticed a few references to bombs, anthrax, the Bible and the ‘glorious Koran’- and also something about civilians and little children getting hurt. Thankfully the excerpt then ended. Note to Mr. Fiasco/Jaco: ‘misinterpretated’ is not a word.

Track 7: Drums of War: With a title like you’d expect something a bit aggressive, provocative, maybe even some drums. But no, it’s back to the clichéd acoustic guitar/voice combination again, this time courtesy of Jackson Yawn- I’m sorry-Browne, who succeeds in the mere seconds Amazon allots him to induce a crippling numbness from the waist down. No, really I can’t feel my legs. Help me, somebody!

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Track 8: What’s Going On: The Marvin Gaye original of this song is actually very good, even if much of the rest of the record it comes from isn’t. This version, by John Legend is once again stripped down (to piano this time) and I’m actually starting to get annoyed by how unnecessary this People Speak record really is: I mean, whose idea was this pile of crap?

Track 9: See How We Are by Exene Cervenka: I just had a look at Wikipedia and discovered that Exene Cervenka is a member of the punk band X. Apparently she recently discovered that she suffers from multiple sclerosis, so I am not going to say anything horrible about this song, but will instead pass over it in silence.

Track 10: Blues with a Feeling, performed by Taj Mahal: Don’t you think Taj Mahal is an excellent pseudonym? Not as good as Sun Ra perhaps, but it’s up there. Excellent selection of name, Mr. Mahal!

Track 11: Brother Can You Spare a Dime by somebody called Alison Moorer, not to be confused with Alan Moore, author of the Watchmen, who used to sing in a band called the Sinister Ducks. More acoustic guitar, singing, etc. The good news is that even the full version on the CD is only 1:51 long, so at least it’s over quickly.

Track 12: A Pawn in their Game, another old Dylan song this time performed by Rich Robinson, whose Dylan impersonation is nowhere near as good as Adrian Belew’s on the Frank Zappa track ‘Flakes’- which was itself a protest song about bad plumbers, car mechanics etc. After this the record mercifully ends.

Conclusions:

1) At least it doesn’t have Joan Baez on it.

2) I’m actually glad that Verve didn’t send me the CD otherwise I would have played it, which would have induced not only severe boredom but a profound sense of irritation at having the ossified 1960s protest song industry rammed down my throat once again. If you like the sound of vain people who write pop ditties taking themselves very seriously, embracing ‘dissent’ while marching in political lockstep then this is the CD/download for you! If not, then I’d advise you to spend your money on something more worthwhile- some toothpicks, for example, or perhaps a lot of balloons with Spongebob’s face on them. Or maybe you could just burn your money instead, and send the ashes in an envelope to whichever musical criminals are responsible for the conception and execution of this rancid record.

You know, as a protest.


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Posted Dec 12th 2009 at 2:33 pm in Culture, Featured Story, Music, Politics | 68 Comments