From: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org (navy-soup-digest) To: navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Subject: navy-soup-digest V3 #46 Reply-To: navy-soup@smoe.org Sender: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-navy-soup-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk navy-soup-digest Thursday, March 16 2000 Volume 03 : Number 046 In This Digest: ----------------- Laura Shawen Band (Check them out) [RocketsTail@aol.com] Review of BP [Songbird22@aol.com] Re: Review of BP [RocketsTail@aol.com] Re: Review of BP [fartachu ] Re: Review of BP [RocketsTail@aol.com] Re: Review of BP [John Drummond ] and ANOTHER thing [John Drummond ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 17:17:51 EST From: RocketsTail@aol.com Subject: Laura Shawen Band (Check them out) I just discovered an AWESOME band! You guys should definatly check her out, I've been exchanging Emails with her and the band for a few days now, they're nice people and are cool to their fans too! The website is http://www.laurashawen.com and you can find them at MP3.COM! GO! -Eric p.s: "Shakespear's Lover" and "burn" are great songs by them "All in a day's dream I'm stuck Like the other monkeys here" ~DMB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:23:14 EST From: Songbird22@aol.com Subject: Review of BP "Interesting" review of Sarah's Blue Parade... He compares her to Tori somehow every other line which I find really annoying (and sort of lazy for someone who reviews albums--whether it be for a magazine, newspaper, or website, which this is from)... Anyway... http://www.tufts.edu/~mzwirn01/review73.htm Sarah Slean, Blue Parade -- I don't know why we find Dolly the Sheep so fascinating. I can't be certain what's so enthralling about the prospect of newly-revived triceratops and velociraptors cavorting through islands off Costa Rica. Our advances in cloning have evidently rendered these puny efforts redundant, based solely on the highly successful Ontario breeding program of a new species of strikingly confident, articulate, graceful and gifted singer-songwriters. The fact that this breeding program appears to have only succeeded in double-X chromosomal pairs notwithstanding, our appraisal of the geneticists of Canada must be raised a knotch. Of course, with prototypes in Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKennitt, they had a head start. Sarah Slean is the first of this crop of young songwriters whom I came across, via the medium of the Internet of course, and her 1998 EP Universe was such an eerily exact verissimilitude of Little Earthquakes-era Tori Amos that I had to gasp at it. Although I'm not always impressed by the ability to mimic another musician so convincingly, the fact of the matter is that Little Earthquakes-era Tori is a particularly difficult brand of music to master, and Slean did it with enough quirks and touches of individuality to remain above the level of a mere highly-trained disciple. This didn't stop me, of course, from putting Slean's songs on mix tapes solely to perplex Tori fans. Slean returned late last year with Blue Parade, her first full-length, and her impending visit to Boston to play at the home of a fan spurred me to pull the record out again for a more dedicated listen. Earlier, it had drifted by and left no more impression than the gentle lapping of a wavelet on a stone beach. A gentle rippling sensation, that was all. On repeated listenings, it's a little hard to explain the first impression: opening track "Playing Cards With Judas" kicks off with a striking Baroque string section, a lithe, lurching keyboard riff and a squeaky electric guitar solo. In tone and theme, it's descended along straight matrilineal lines from Tori Amos' "God," although this is less grating and catchier. What the opening track boasts in flash, though, it lacks in depth. The guitar playing in particular seems vaguely pointless. "Bonnie's Song" is an uncomfortable hybrid of meandering piano lines, sweeping strings, and some muted vibraphone. It doesn't quite succeed at any of the things it intends to accomplish. "My Invitation" is out of the "Bells for Her" textbook, a limpid and hesitant keyboard reverie with aching and sweetly self-accusatory lyrics. "Damn the angry voice that keeps us quiet / the editor whose work is never done / Keeping pretty words between my teeth and / sweet confessions underneath my tongue," she sings with inappropriate delicacy. Slean's voice is as tart as Tori Amos' can be, but lacks some of the sweetness and richness that leavens Tori's singing. Ignoring Tori's nonsensical lyrics entirely on similar piano pieces, I can simply luxuriate in the sly use of words as pure sound. With Slean, I demand something more, some attempt at a deeper meaning which she doesn't always supply. "Habit" makes me shudder immediately with the opening lyric "Think I should take up smoking," and I frown at the pill references in "Before Your Time." "Twin Moon," conversely, sounded absolutely thrilling the first time it trilled out of the speakers on my Powerbook on a download from her website, precisely because its strength lay in its ambiguity. "Take me up-sky so I can kiss you / Drink your starlight" is the kind of meaningless blather I can easily appreciate. "Awake Soon," in the style of her Gabriel Fauré setting from the Universe EP, is a pretty if flimsy exercise in multitracked vocals. Slean favors a less cluttered approach musically than the past few Tori records, but electric sitar, glockspiel, and a host of novel organic percussion instruments creep into her arrangements on occasion. Despite these embellishments, she ultimately writes mostly for and on the keyboard, and piano ballads are the heart of her repertoire. Over the course of the second half of the album, elliptical lyrics like "Armies and ice and dirty green / Newspapers shovels sand on the breeze" simply frustrate in the absence of more varied material. Much as I love Under the Pink, the Tori album which this most resembles musically, I cherish its piano ballads next to its thumping percussion experiments next to its sweeping orchestral epics. I rarely fault an album for its prettiness, but Slean simply doesn't provide enough variety to sustain momentum over eleven tracks. I'm sorry. Did I say eleven tracks? I meant twelve, with the final hidden track separated by a nine-minute pause. That right there might have been enough to piss me off. As impressed as I am by Slean's obvious talent, this record frustrates me more than anything else. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 19:43:55 EST From: RocketsTail@aol.com Subject: Re: Review of BP No no no lol. I'm a HUGE fan of Tori but when I first heard Sarah, I never once heard any link between her music and Tori's. This guy obviously had no other way to write his review then to compare her music (unfairly) to every TOri song he could think of. "Playing Cards with Judas" doesn't have a hint of Tori's "GOD" in it LOL, did this guy even listen to the album more than once? Geez. -Eric "All in a day's dream I'm stuck Like the other monkeys here" ~DMB ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 20:45:11 -0500 From: fartachu Subject: Re: Review of BP when we last left our heroes, RocketsTail@aol.com exclaimed: > No no no lol. I'm a HUGE fan of Tori but when I first heard Sarah, I never >once heard any link between her music and Tori's. while i don't think there is a *lot* of common ground between sarah and tori, i do think there is enough that the comparison is valid. for instance, the piano in "weight" is strikingly similar in style to tori's playing, though somewhat heavier. dunno if it's a rip-off, hommage or accident though. >This guy obviously had no >other way to write his review then to compare her music (unfairly) to every >TOri song he could think of. generally, i think comparisons shouldn't be the meat of a review, but they are useful and serve a purpose for orienting the reader as to roughly where on the musical spectrum the reviewed album lies. then again, reviews which compare and contrast with a deeper level of detail can be enjoyable to read, especially if the critic knows of which they speak as the insights can be very useful. alas, this does not appear to be such a review, but at least s/he recognizes that "twin moon" is not to be trifled with. ;) woj ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 21:12:07 EST From: RocketsTail@aol.com Subject: Re: Review of BP In a message dated 3/15/00 8:00:17 PM Central Standard Time, woj@smoe.org writes: << but they are useful >> Yes I agree comparisons are good for an artist who is unknown to the mainstream like Sarah but to center the whole review around comparing her album to Tori's music is a bit ridiculous. It helps me discover new music if an artists is compared to someone I like but there's no need to go on and on...and just because they both play piano should not mean she's copying. - -Eric "All in a day's dream I'm stuck Like the other monkeys here" ~DMB ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2000 18:46:41 -0800 From: John Drummond Subject: Re: Review of BP Y'know, y'all, the thing that really irritated me most about the review is that the "journalist" kept referring to things as meaningless or featherweight or some other de-valuing word... and um it's not that it's meaningless... Sarah's lyrics approach nowhere near Tori's level of hallucinogenic bitchiness... Sarah is much more concrete, even when she IS saying "armies and ice and dirty green", because she means something with it that does pertain to the rest of the song... the problem is that since Sarah is saying things intelligently and artistically, this reviewer person doesn't understand every nuance of her every intention upon the first (and I'm assuming ONLY) listen he gave to the record. And heLLO, saying the the opening lyric of "Habit" irritated him personally and led him to a negative review is like saying Tori is irritating and should be reviewed negatively because a reviewer would rather she had started the chorus to "Honey" on a D7 chord instead of a C chord or something, it's completely arbitrary and has absolutely nothing to do with the direct content and more to do with the reviewer running out of actual criticisms... not that anything this person said really had any weight... oh, wait... that's funny, the reviewer said everything Sarah said had no weight... it looks like it's the pot trying to call the kettle black here, children. Stupid fuckers. John [probably only funny to me] Two-person quote du jour of the day : (after a slight lull in the online banter) ME: *stretch* What are you up to, Baby? HIM: fuggin' w/ peeple and listening to the newest styles available ____________________________________________________________________ For the largest MP3 index on the Web, go to http://mp3.altavista.com ____________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 2000 18:49:38 -0800 From: John Drummond Subject: and ANOTHER thing More ranting right quick: Sarah isn't lyrically as tripped-out as Tori because HI she hasn't done anywhere NEAR as many mushrooms as Tori has... I seriously doubt that Sarah has even done mushrooms at all, she doesn't seem to be the let's-hear-the-colors-and-see-the-music type at all, MUCH less the gimme-another-one-o-them-phat-'cid-hits like Tori is. I hate comparisons. People need to stop writing music reviews unless they actually know, like, how to think. And I'm going off a bit, but it's so frustrating to see idiots out there who have the power to get their words out actually GETTING THEIR WORDS OUT when um all of their words are meaningless and empty and intellectually bankrupt. Sorry. John [probably only funny to me] Two-person quote du jour of the day : (after a slight lull in the online banter) ME: *stretch* What are you up to, Baby? HIM: fuggin' w/ peeple and listening to the newest styles available ____________________________________________________________________ For the largest MP3 index on the Web, go to http://mp3.altavista.com ____________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ End of navy-soup-digest V3 #46 ******************************