| Shopping For Recycled Fabs And Jacko--A Family
Affair
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November 19th, 2003 As you well know by now, we love our pop culture big time around these here parts. And in this family in particular, Tuesday, November 18th was shaping up to be a very interesting day, one that, due to, shall we say, some widely publicized outside developments, managed to become even more memorable?... If you've been monitoring these entries for any substantial amount of time now, you well know that earlier this year, my 13 year old daughter, Julie, became totally obsessed with Michael Jackson virtually overnight. How exactly that happened is too long a story to reiterate here--and besides, I don't completely understand it in any event. What I DO know is it was approximately 39 and a half years ago that I initially contracted a life-long case of raging Beatlemania, but yesterday, in a rare confluence of events, these two mighty musical--or should I say, marketing--forces came together, each camp sending forth a new release. While I'd been there to greet each and every fresh Fab Four melodic masterpiece as they were issued from early 1964 on, this was in fact the very first chance for Julie to drop shekels in her new idols coffers on debut day, and she was nearly as excited as her dad at the prospect of happily going home with newly minted product from her personal fave-rave. Of course, the key words in the preceding sentence would have to be, "new" and "product", of which the former was questionable, and the latter undeniable... The Beatles were set to issue "Let It Be...Naked", a stripped down version of what had been their swan-song release way back in 1970. Paul McCartney in particular had always been bothered by what he felt were heavy-handed production embellishments troweled on after the band had left the building (and without Macca's knowledge or permission) by legendary Wall of Sound maestro (and a man with his own set of current legal woes), Phil Spector, and longed to present the project as originally conceived--no overdubs, no sweetening, just five guys sitting around a studio, playing basic rock and roll. (Guest organist Billy Preston figures prominently on several of the cuts--no folks, I WASN'T referring to a late career cameo by the immortal Murray the K!!...) Throw in a second CD of snatches of dialog and rehearsal jams caught on tape during the non-stop recording of the band for what was eventually to be the group's coda, the "Let It Be" film, and the folks at Apple have cooked up an irresistible package--AND a sure-fire way of getting die hard fans (and, I'm sure they hope, many, many others as well) to fork over cash for an album they essentially already have! Hey, I was MORE than ready to dip into the ol' wallet, and I already own myself an extensive bootleg set of these extensively documented sessions! (As wonderful a song as it may well be, YOU just try listening to 14 consecutive takes of "The Long And Winding Road", the redundancy leavened only by a brief stab at "Lady Madonna" mid-way through the inescapably monotonous series of rehearsals !?! This new CD has, if nothing else, the virtue of conciseness going for it...) The self-proclaimed King Of Pop? Well, he and the friendly suits at Sony apparently felt the need to release a self-explanatorily titled collection of past hits called "Number Ones" (spurred on, perhaps, by the Beatles own phenomenally successful "1" assemblage several years back, hmm?...) Although he'd already released a two-disc retrospective called "HIStory" almost a decade ago (devoting fully half of it's running time to fresh material), Jackson offers up but one new composition on THIS greatest hits collection as enticement for his most rabid fans (read:Julie), accompanied, as always, by such indisputable milestones as "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and "Thriller". Somewhat suspiciously, however, his duet with one-time mic mate, Macca, "The Girl Is Mine", is inexplicably absent, while several songs from his less than enthusiastically received recent "Invincible" album instead DO make the final cut!?! Huh? As we were driving home, I asked Julie to read the track listing to me, and when she came to such relatively obscure titles as "You Rock My World" and "Break Of Dawn", I just HAD to wonder--where exactly were these cuts Number Ones? At the Neverland Ranch? (Tellingly, the liner notes provide absolutely no Billboard--or other similarly sourced--chart position information, unlike, say, that aforementioned completely annotated Beatles disc, or the two expertly vetted Elvis collections released in the wake of the Fabs' initial success in their precedent setting money-making adventures in the rich realm of musical recycling...) I offered to pick up the Michael Jackson CD for her when I stopped at Best Buy on my way over to play volleyball with the gang, but Julie insisted she wanted to be present for this momentous occasion, and realizing full well the novelty of the situation, we went on to formulate other plans. It was agreed that I'd pick her up directly from school, zip over and do our bit for good ol' American consumerism, and then I'd drop her off at home, following which, off on my merry, merry way I'd go. But the planned events took on a slightly different tone when I happened to turn on MSNBC after eating lunch with Lynn, who was working at home Tuesday afternoon. A quick glimpse at what was up on the screen (MSNBC's ill-conceived "Flash News" screen blurb sounds more like what they might label breaking stories on The Bizarro News Network than a worthy replacement for the standard phrase, "News Flash", incidentally...), and suddenly I found myself literally running over to the other side of the house, shouting "Michael Jackson! Micheal Jackson!!" in much the same manner a certain OTHER member of the Hembeck household has been known to do, as I was eager to switch the tube on nearest to Lynn and share whatever this latest development was with her! Well, unless you've had your head buried in the sand for the last 24 hours or so, you pretty much know what's going on. Those allegations--AGAIN. And, wouldn't you know it--they surface oh-so-coincidentally on the very day the Peter Pan-wannabe has a new recording hitting the stores! (Well, SORTA new, but we've already covered that...) They SAY there's no such thing as bad publicity, friends, and if ever there was a true test of THAT long-held bromide, this is it!... Okay, okay--I'll cop to a certain amount of misguided glee as Julie got into my car and I breathlessly informed her of the latest chapter in the HIStory of that bad, dangerous, and definitely off the wall fella. (Invincible? We'll have to wait and see on THAT one...) Please understand, though she seemingly talks constantly about MJ (her affectionate term for the erstwhile Wacko Jacko), her relentless yammerings are, strangely enough, divided almost equally between a highly unusual combination of blind adoration and a-not-always-good-natured-mocking of his (many, many) eccentricities. That would include what could only be termed his more disturbing--albeit, up to this point, merely alleged--proclivities. Lynn and I have attempted, upon numerous occasions, to communicate the enormity of these awful accusations to her, but she just doesn't get it. Intellectually, she says she understands, but then she and some of friends get to talking about it, and suddenly it becomes a ready source for a series of darkly humorous comments. None of 'em quite get it. The subject winds up being no more weighty to her than the many quips Jay Leno has spewed out, rather irresponsibly, on this particularly sensitive subject over the last decade, so we adults just sigh, and move on. Hey, I never said maturity ran in this family... So Julie received the news with a dollop of shock weirdly mixed in with a sort of embarrassed amusement. In the days leading up to "Number Ones", she'd talked up the impending release with everyone--and I mean, EVERYONE--at her school! What were they gonna think of Michael--of HER, for that matter--now? But, trouper that she is, she managed to swiftly sweep those minor concerns aside. By now, we were pulling into the Best Buy parking lot, and barring a formally issued restraining order, we had us some tunes to buy!... Once inside, we went straight to the new releases section. Sure enough, there were multiple copies of both CDs, each on sale for the initial week's price of $11.99. (Usually, the very best price to be had on a new CD or DVD is within the product's first 7 days of shelf-life, and I've come to understand that I can save anywhere from two to ten dollars--and sometimes, even more, in special cases--if I pony up the bucks while the ink is still wet on the packaging, metaphorically speaking (which, frankly, is a tough lingo to master...) Such was the case again in this instance.) I hastily grabbed a Beatles CD, but Julie was faced with a more daunting task--deciding which of the four covers she'd most like to take home with her (collector's though we Hembeck's may be, we still have enough good sense not to fall for the now-tired multiple covers gambit--at least, um, not anymore...) It's a good thing I brought her along, dig, because if I HAD picked one of the four out, don't you know it would've been the WRONG one? (Even if it wasn't...) Finally, after some initial indecision, Julie made her choice, but now we had us a NEW problem--she was completely convinced everybody in the store was a gawking at her, contemptuous of her potential purchase!... This paranoid reaction probably resulted from an amusing anecdote (to me, anyway) I'd shared with her a while back concerning the events surrounding my purchase of a copy of "Invincible" for her birthday. In that instance, I strolled up to the cashier at the local Media Play outlet, a handful of CDs to pay for, which he summarily and pleasantly began to ring up--UNTIL he came upon our pal, MJ. He mock dropped it on the counter in much the same manner a vampire would rid itself of an unwanted crucifix, hot potato-like!! Although adopting a breezily light tone of voice, he went on to make several disparaging comments about the singer, leaving me to defensively offer up the information that the disc was intended as a birthday gift for my soon-to-be-13 year old daughter. Hearing this, the lady standing behind me in line had her own nugget of advice to impart--don't let her anywhere near that Neverland ranch, she exclaimed! I forced a chuckle, even though insulting your customer's taste may not be the BEST way to rack up massive retail sales on behalf of our "helpful" cashier, I later reasoned. Subsequently, I shared the details of this amusing encounter with the birthday girl. Fine--except NOW she expects every cashier in every store to react in a similar manner!?! And ESPECIALLY on a day when Michael finds himself all over the cable news networks--and NOT for breaking any sales records, either. More like just plain breaking some LAWS... I assured her no one really gave a hoot what she was buying, but before we went up to the check -out counter, there were several other items I wanted to look for. Sale prices, remember. Unfortunately, the DVD of last year's star-studded "Concert For George" (Harrison) was already sold out, but I did manage to grab the far deeper stocked 4 DVD edition of the second installment of "The Lord Of The Rings", as well as a third sale CD. As we ambled on up to the front of the store to pay for our disc-shaped delights, Julie became more and more uncomfortable at the impending prospect of the cashier's reaction to her MJ CD... After the blatantly bored teenage girl had blithely rung us up and sent us on our way, Julie still wasn't convinced: "Do you think she thought we were crazy for buying that Michael Jackson CD?" "Kid", I said, "considering we also bought something called "Come Poop With Me", I doubt very much that your CD seemed all that unusual!..." (Yeah, the debut CD from Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog, was popularly priced, so I grabbed a copy. One of the most surreally amusing moments in my long consumer history occurred as the Best Buy girl ran the UPC symbol through the computer, and the words "Come Poop With Me" gloriously appeared in green digital letters, metaphorically leaving some doggy droppings right there on that small black display screen!?! And, let me understand--Michael Jackson was going to seem sillier than this HOW??....) Once in the car, my no longer reserved Jackson acolyte viciously tore the wrapping off her new prize (I knew I'd have to wait until my drive across the river to volleyball later on to hear mine--hey, we parents are trained to be martyrs, y'know?), and she eagerly shoved it into our cars CD player, going directly to the spanking-new track (though maybe, under the circumstances, that's not the BEST way to put it ?...), a little trifle called "One More Chance" (...a prophetic title, perhaps?...) (written by--get this--R. Kelly, a singer with a similar rap-sheet ) Within the tracks first 20 seconds, our boy attempts to say the word "best", but for the life of me, his reading of the lyrics sounded all the world to the both of us like "breast" instead!?! THAT caused my less-than-sophisticated girlie-girl to erupt into endless paroxysms of laughter, the hilarity seemingly growing exponentially each time she re-cued the track, which, much to my chagrin, she did repeatedly! Like I said, her special brand of worshipful mocking is unique in my experience!... Delivering Julie home--whereupon she immediately called fellow devotee, Courtney, playing Michael's musical malaprop over the phone at a necessarily loud volume--I scooped up my kneepads and was off, finally breaking free from my own private Neverland! I then opened MY reconfigured gem, anxious to visit the Liverpool of my mind yet one more time, inserted the new/old audio document into the slot, and drove off. Considering that several reviews I'd read preceding the release of the now-naked recording made it seem as if the changes were minimal at best, I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard coming out of the speakers. To my ears, those early reports seemed a bit off base... For one thing, the sequence of songs had been completely overhauled, with "Get Back" more appropriately leading things off, as opposed to closing out what was once side two (that honor, again more fittingly, is left instead to the title track). And while several cuts are clearly the same takes as the ones featured on the original LP (such as the never crisper sounding Harrison composition, "For You Blue"), several others seem to be altogether previously unissued alternate takes (of which, as I've already noted, there were clearly a plethora to chose from). The addition of "Don't Let Me Down" to the package was a belatedly overdue but welcome decision that's made all the more appealing by including a fresh take of this tasty Lennon lament. And I was probably most surprised by the version of "The Long And Winding Road" that wound up on this far-from-standard-reissue. Since Paul had already stripped the Spectorian strings from what he saw as a sadly mistreated tune, finally including it as he envisioned it originally on the third installment of the Beatles Anthology series, I had wondered about the necessity of going through all this again if indeed that was his primary motivation and his biggest beef. But lo and behold, we have here a brand new take to enjoy! And as with much of the music to be found on this new pressing, Fab Number Five, organist/referee/calming influence Billy Preston, perhaps benefits most from this Capitol cash-cow, as he's suddenly--and clearly!(the sound quality is stunningly immaculate)--all over this record!! You can also enjoy his keyboard runs on the majestic title track, which sounds, after but a single listen, to be yet another fresh--and fine--take! The more I delved into things on the drive over, the more I realized that the boys were giving me considerably more for MY $11.99 than that OTHER fellow was giving my darlin' daughter for HERS?!?... Quibbles? Yeah, I have a few. I find it particularly jarring that "Get Back" just sort of peters out, neither finishing up with the delayed ending included on the well-known single release, nor the jokingly ironic bit of Lennon dialog regarding mock hopes of passing auditions, as famously included on the 1970 album. And while I like the idea of entirely dispensing with the studio chatter between songs altogether--as well as song fragments "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae"--including them instead on the 20-plus minute aural documentary second disc, aptly entitled, "Fly On The Wall", I find the absence of that specific snippet of good natured sarcasm to be, well, inexplicable. And that, gang, is why I'm holding on to my ORIGINAL "Let It Be" CD and not selling it on eBay, I suppose... Otherwise, nice job. It'll be interesting to see just how well it sells, especially compared to MJ's compilation. Will having a warrant out for one's arrest spur or stifle sales? Another hitherto uncharted territory Julie's boy gets to explore. Of course, I found it somewhat note-worthy that Julie entirely ignored the very hottest release of the week, the newest set of songs from a singer whose first two CDs were quickly snapped up around here in years past, the all-but-forgotten (in THIS household, anyway) Ms. Brittany Spears! (If MJ ever considers recording a set of cover songs, might I suggest, "Oops! I Did It Again!" as being somehow perversely suitable?...) That, then, was our day. Julie plunking down her pennies for the regurgitated recordings from the alleged child molester, and me whipping out the ol' Visa card for a revamped release stripped of all it's after-the-fact sonic embellishment's put there by an accused murderer!! Pop music--and someone actually WANTS to be King of it?... |