Now listening to: Portishead, Glory Times
Now reading: Poppy Z. Brite, The Crow: The Lazarus Heart
Now playing: Kessen (Playstation 2)
So now I have a new home on the World Wide Web. Knowing that
nobody reading this would be likely to send me housewarming presents, I withdrew some cash
from my E*Trade account and treated myself to a shopping spree at Media Play last weekend
while finishing work on this site. Particularly after the events of this past month,
I needed to treat myself to something nice, and what better way to do that than to go to
my favourite store and just buy up everything that caught my eye.
After getting my Playstation 2 last month, I finally had the
capability to play DVDs, and so that first weekend after getting the system I went out DVD
shopping. I'd been hoping to get Bj�rk's Volumen,
but after seemingly having it in stock every week I went to Media Play, that one weekend
they sold out all their copies. But this weekend somehow I lucked out as not only
did they have Volumen but also the "All is Full of Love" DVD single.
Two quick additions to the DVD library right there.
Just for fun, here's a quick review of the videos that comprise Volumen:
- "Human Behaviour" -- The video that started the
Bj�rk/Michel Gondry collaboration that I now almost take for granted, it seems so
natural. Since my father builds models of buildings as part of his work I know a bit
about the process, and Gondry has an amazing ability to take $10,000 worth of props and
make them look like a million dollars. He also has a great ability to understand
Bj�rk's ideas, and in some cases take them further, as in this video. Pure genius,
and a great sign of what was to come with the two.
- "Venus as a Boy" -- Unless you've read Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye you won't get
what Bj�rk was trying to do with this video. The video stands out on its own, but
without the understanding of its inspiration it's nothing all that special.
- "Play Dead" -- It's a shame this song never got released
stateside, because while Bj�rk's tackled similar emotions in her later work, "Play
Dead" has a certain raw sadness to it that she hasn't duplicated since.
Unfortunately the video is a "movie video" for the British movie it was featured
in, The Young Americans, and movie
videos abuse the music video art form for crass commercialism. Still, I'd recommend The
Young Americans to everyone, because the incidental music Bj�rk created for it
really makes the movie in a lot of ways.
- "Big Time Sensuality" -- Here's Bj�rk. Here's Bj�rk
on a truck going through New York City. Here's Bj�rk on a truck going through New
York City dancing for this stationary camera. I don't like it when today's rap or
pop or whatever acts just film a few minutes of themselves dancing around and partying and
try to pass it off as a video, and I can't cut Bj�rk any slack for using this technique
either, because it just screams egotism run amuck. Even though the cool Fluke Minimix remix was used for the
video, it doesn't change the fact that the video lacks any kind of substance.
- "Violently Happy" -- Nice attempt at a concept video, but
nothing thoroughly wonderful, especially compared to some of her later work. I never
got the chance to see most of the Debut videos when they first
aired, so when I first picked Volumen up on video tape it was good to see them.
But "Violently Happy" failed to move me; it was well-done, but it just
didn't grab me.
- "Army of Me" -- Again Bj�rk went to Michel Gondry to come
up with a great video for the first track of her new album, and Gondry came through again,
though I'd have to say this is the least inspired of Gondry's Bj�rk videos. While
the Metropolis-inspired visuals are nice, the underlying story isn't on the same
level of his other work for Bj�rk.
- "Isobel" -- This is perhaps the video that has grown on me
the most since initially viewing it. At first I was just mesmerized by the
incredible Bettie Page-esque haircut Bj�rk had, but after repeated viewings the visuals
just keep drawing me in, and the way they tie in to the song itself is just
terrific. I don't even particularly understand the style this video evokes, but it
makes me want to know. Probably the most underrated of Bj�rk's videos.
- "It's Oh So Quiet" -- Then again, considering this followed
"Isobel" in short order, it's no wonder people paid more attention to this one.
Spike Jonze really kicked it up a notch and made this one work in ways it
shouldn't have worked, though it says a lot about the music industry's disdain for Bj�rk
that even though this video was released at the peak of the Spike Jonze craze, Jonze still
lost Best Director at that year's MTV Video Music Awards. Still, this is a nice,
happy little romp that still ranks as one of the better music videos of all time.
- "Hyperballad" -- My favourite song from Post without question, but the video just
didn't cut it. The main problem with a lot of Bj�rk's later work is that her songs
have just become a backdrop for a lot of pretty visuals that are nice, but don't really
utilize the music video art form in the way it was intended to be. This is the first
example of this technique as we get a lot of cool computer-generated effects but little
else. And it didn't help that they used a remix featuring an inferior retake of
Bj�rk's vocals and a hideous clip job of the wonderful swell at the end of the song that
was on the album version.
- "Possibly Maybe" -- Just like "Hyperballad," only
without an ultra-cool song and with fluorescent effects instead of computer graphics.
At least the theme of the song bleeds somewhat into the video, but not enough to
save it from "pretty visual" syndrome.
- "I Miss You" -- I like Bj�rk. I like John
Kricfalusi. But I really do not like this video. John K. works best
when he downplays the more extreme elements of his work, but here he seems to play them up
to the max, and it's a complete turn-off. It also doesn't help that this video was
shot during Bj�rk's misjudged journey into the world of strawberry blonde hair. My
least favourite Bj�rk video, right behind "Big Time Sensuality." But for
those who saw the video on MTV, you should see the original version here, without the
"breast scene" cut out.
- "Joga" -- Pretty visual syndrome again, as for once Bj�rk
didn't go to Michel Gondry for the first video off a new album. In all fairness some
of the effects in here were tremendous for their time, and still stand up against today's
best work, but effects alone are still not what I want to see in a video. Although
this video did provide the backdrop for an example of the utter cluelessness of today's
youth, as during an episode of MTV's ill-fated 12 Angry Viewers show, one of the
panelists scolded Bj�rk for the white coat she was wearing, saying she was "trying
to be like Mary J. Blige." I swear to you, I am not making that up.
- "Bachelorette" -- So when Bj�rk finally went to Gondry,
she made it count. Homogenic should have
been the Bat out of Hell of my
generation, the album that made people forget how fat, or weird, or whatever, the singer
was, and just made you go, "Oh my god, you mean you can do this with
music?" "Bachelorette" was the epitome of what Homogenic was
all about, combining the most classical and modern of musical stylings in a song as epic
as The Iliad. I was worried when I learned this song was going to get the
video treatment because I didn't think anything could match the genius of the song, but
somehow Gondry did it, creating the template of what music videos should be about.
The greatest music video of all time, without question, for one of the greatest songs of
all time.
- "Hunter" -- Unfortunately the compilation closes with
another pretty visual video, again featuring great computer effects but no story. I
like looking at Bj�rk for minutes on end, but if I wanted to do that I'd look at a
picture of her; when I watch a music video, I want something more than that.
"Hunter" fails to give me that, and in truth I don't think the song is one of
the better tracks from Homogenic.
Volumen is still a must-buy, there's no question about it.
And just in case you hadn't deduced it by now, all the links you see here go to
amazon.com or cdnow.com pages where you can buy the work in question. And not only
can you buy it, but when you buy it through the link from this site, you also put a little
money in my pocket thanks to the affiliate deals I have with both sites. Even if
you're not interested in my selections, you can still shop through the links on my front page and help finance
my various entertainment-based habits.
To get back to the Media Play trip, I also picked up Poppy Z.
Brite's Wormwood while I was
out. Horror hadn't ever particularly been my thing, but I'm finding that reading it
is a lot easier than trying to watch a scary movie, because it usually allows me to dull
the scenes to my own thresholds for blood and guts and all that other nasty stuff.
Although as I read Poppy Z. Brite's work I'm finding those thresholds are becoming greater
and greater. Perhaps it's because Brite is such a great writer, I don't know.
I'm a child of the cable TV age so I've never really been into recreational reading, but
since being turned on to Brite's work I've been more interested in curling up with a good
book. Just like with movies, which I don't watch that often, I find it easier to
become immersed in a book than with other forms of entertainment. At least now I
have something to pick up after finishing The Crow: The Lazarus Heart.
I rounded off my Media Play trip with a Powerpuff Girls t-shirt
(picking up the last style they had that I didn't already own) and three CDs. First
off was Portishead's Glory Times, which I kind of liked but didn't change my
initial skepticism about the set, that "Sour Times" and "Glory Box"
were two songs that had been perfected and didn't need remixes. At least now I have
a copy of "Theme from To Kill a Dead Man," which I've been dying for since I
first saw the video for it on Amp.
I also picked up Smashing Pumpkins' Gish, because MTV2 has had the
videos for "Siva" and "Rhinoceros" in regular rotation recently and
I've begun to realize I prefer the Pumpkins' earlier work, before side projects and
break-ups and drugs basically destroyed the group. I don't own the last few Pumpkins
CDs but even among their earlier work I'm really liking the sound here; the Chicago
influence is perhaps stronger here than in their later work, and it has that whole
"alternative before alternative was cool" flow going for it.
Finally I got Recoil's Liquid, just because I had
Recoil recommended to me by the same friend who turned me on to Poppy Z. Brite. That
friend has really been expanding my horizons, and for that I must thank her. I
wouldn't say as I'm totally unfamiliar with Recoil's sound, because I have similar CDs in
my collection. But Recoil adds a layer of sensuality to the primitive sounds that's
like a fog machine in my brain, clouding my previous perceptions and forcing me to focus
on a single beacon of sexual charge to find my way.
Going back to my Playstation 2 for a moment, you have to
get Kessen. I'd never played a real-time strategy game before, but I picked this one
up real quick and I can jam on this thing forever. The battle scenes kick so much
ass that I can keep viewing them over and over again and never get tired of them.
The level of detail in the game is just unbelievable, and the only real problem I have
with it is that sometimes the general swing their spears through the decorations on their
headdresses. Other than the fact that I missed an episode of Powerpuff Girls
because I got caught in the middle of a two-hour battle, though, the only fault I can find
with the game is that there aren't enough hours in the day to play it. I completed
the game in less than a week, although it felt like the final battle playing as the West
damn near took a week, and my victory was hardly Napoleonic.
And Jeff finally came over to see the Playstation 2 and, of course,
test the DVD features. He brought over some of his DVD collection so he could run my
system "through the paces," and he seemed to leave plenty jealous. The
only real problem we ran into was with the special commentary on Men in Black, as
the silhouettes and telestrating on the screen seemed to flicker on and off at odd times.
Given some of the subtitling problems I've run into on some of my anime DVDs, I'm
guessing the subtitling part of the DVD software isn't quite up to snuff, perhaps limited
by the system's video RAM. But it's not too much of a problem for me, at least not
for now.
Geez, here I go with these grand plans for the new site, and I spend
my whole first journal update talking about all this petty stuff. I'd been hoping to
do something more profound than just talk about CDs and DVDs and music videos and stuff,
but oh well. This is a work in progress, and I need to allow myself to experiment
here, see where these forays will take me. And if I don't like where I end up, I can
always go someplace else, try something new. No biggie.
Anyway, I hope you all check out the poetry, and hopefully I should
have some fiction cooked up for the site shortly. I should get back to some of my
songs shortly, but I wanna keep updating here, because I'm really having fun with this.
Everyone be sure to join the mailing list to receive e-mails whenever I have
something new for you here, or else just keep checking in to the site. I'll be
around.
Until then, let my tonbogiri be your passage TO HELL!!!
- Sean
copyright � 2000 Sean Shannon