Ordinary Nothing

I was working at the office, and my playlist reached a track by Aimee
Mann. While it was playing one of my colleagues came to me asking who is
the singer.
I told him it was Aimee Mann, and to my surprise he said he never heard of her.
Which was nothing compared to my surprise at his next statement… "She
sounds just like… what was her name… Shania". Shania Twain, as it
turned out after I asked him.

Shania Twain ?!  Aimee Mann sounds like Shania Twain ?! WTF ?!

This guy loves loud music. I think that probably his ears are damaged
and have stopped functioning properly… There can’t really be any
other explanation, can there?

P.S. Just in case anyone cares, I like both of them, and have most/all
of their CDs. Both Aimee Mann’s and Shania Twain’s. And yes, originals,
legally bought. If someone would have pointed a gun to my head and
forced me to give up ever listening to one of them ever again, I’ll say
goodbye to Shania, but I won’t be very happy about it.

My previous post on Cinderella just reminded me of Into the Woods, so I figured I’d drop a quick recommendation. This is a great DVD of a great show.
Good if you like musicals. Good if you like fairy tales. Good if you like Stephen Sondheim. Good if you like Bernadette Peters, or Joanna Gleason, or any of the other singers there.

A few weeks ago we were supposed to go to see a performance of the Cinderella opera in our local community center, and it didn’t quite happen.
They ran it a second time today, so to make up for last time we got free invitations.

The show itself was an amalgam of opera and ballet parts. While it was nicely done, the drive behind it was not so much artistic, but social. They have a lot of talented immigrants who are practically starving, and this is one way in which the municipalities deal with it. By arranging shows, they can pay the artists salaries, and subsidize it out of culture funds.

Since most of the people on the stage were actually good, I don’t have a problem with this. I got to see a decent show at a good price (Well, a very good price since it was a totally free invitation, but the price of paid tickets was also rather low). And the artists got a salary for doing their job.

I’m not sure where the libretto was taken from, exactly. The music came from all over the place, where the ballet parts mostly were taken from a wide range of composers and eras. The printed program page for the show was sadly lacking in all details beyond simple listing of names of the people on stage. The overture and accompanying music for the operatic parts was played live by real musicians near the stage, while much of the ballet music was pre-recorded. The combination was somewhat odd, with a clear discrepancy in sound quality (The real musicians were good).

The plot itself was highly abridged and edited, so that what happens on stage will fit the available cast. So there was a bit more dancing and ballet than singing. The ballet troupe was decent, some dancers were quite good. There was also a rubber girl who is (I think, but no clear details were ever supplied) a part of the troupe.

The obvious star of the evening, and the one person that I believe to not be a starving artist, was the singer Marina Zolotov. In the lead role of Cinderella. She has a wonderful voice. She also has excellent pronunciation and her Italian actually sounded like clear Italian. Not too surprisingly, she’s a real singer with the Israeli Opera. Hearing her sing was basically worth the all evening by itself. She could have done better, as was obvious in some parts, but I can’t really fault her for not going all out in this setting. And what’s more important about her as a singer is the clear impression that she could have if she wanted to.

The prince had a weak voice, and according to rumor (from one in the know) was chosen due to his looks… The two sisters, Lilliana Krizner and Sophia Yakobov (spelling is a guess, the printed page was only in Hebrew), both had a good voice, and done very nice acting, but still need to work on their pronunciation a bit. One of them I recall seeing before on some occasion.

And that’s it for the singing parts. I can’t possibly connect the names on the page with the myriad dancers on the stage, so I won’t even try.

The only bad parts were on the culture of Israelis as a crowed. There were no less than three different people that turned off their cellphones only after the show started, resulting in those highly annoying musical chimes overriding the show’s music. People also clapped their hands all over the place whenever someone finished an aria or a dance, which is very nice but is just not the thing to do. You’re supposed to clap after the show when everyone is finished, not during the show when the next bit is already starting (Except of course in one part near the end where the ballet troupe actually had their people do solo dances and then bow for the applause, with the opera people looking nonplussed from the side).

Overall it was a good show, and for a good cause. Those people do deserve to work, they’re quite good the most of them. And once again, just to make sure it’s covered, Marina Zolotov is amazing.

I turned on the radio this morning on a channel I usually don’t listen to. I got in just in time for the last part of a somewhat amusing (In a usually low-humor kind of way) show. They were in a part of the show where they try and help people come up with old things they forgot. I got the last few sentences of someone trying to decide about the name of a character on some cartoon. And then I got a whole new question and answer.

The caller explained that there’s a song he’s trying to find. His sister used to play and sing it for him when he was little, and he’s been trying to find out what song it was for years. According to him he asked a lot of people he knows, but everyone just said that it sounds very familiar yet they can’t place it.

He started to sing the song. It took me about five seconds to recognize the music as Greensleeves.

But they lyrics, the lyrics were something else entirely. Something totally unrelated that probably his sister came up with on her own. The two anchors of the show started to hum the music, telling each other that it’s indeed familiar. Guessing it may be from some musical or something…

They told him that they don’t think his words are the originals, and maybe his sister made them up. He replied that no, these are the real lyrics, his sister wouldn’t make up words for songs.

Apparently the usual mode of finding answers in the show was to ask listeners to phone in, send SMS messages, or to send emails. So there was a delay of about two minutes when they kept humming Greensleeves trying to guess what it was, and the caller insisted on singing it with his words.
It was so maddening I almost considered phoning in myself. Not a good idea while driving, though.

The caller also said that he tried running searches through lyrics search engines, and posting the lyrics on newsgroups, but nobody recognized it… Small surprise, since these aren’t the real words, or even close. The anchors tried to tell him that, but he was adamant that his sister couldn’t come up with such amazing lyrics. The idea that maybe she copied them from someone else that made them up didn’t occur to him.

Eventually someone managed to SMS in the word "Greensleeves". One of the anchors exclaimed that he knows it, and that it’s a well known song that has a lot of different performances. Which is absolutely true.

He than continued to say that if he remembers correctly there’s one performance by Loreena McKennitt, so the caller can try and find that. He then continued to spell Loreena "L-o-r-e-n-a"… Almost… He also claimed that’s the best performance of this song he knows. It’s a matter of taste, but while in general I like McKennitt a lot, this particular performance is too slow for my taste.

He also said that he’s not quite sure if this is the first version of the song. I nearly chocked. McKennitt isn’t such a young lady anymore, true, but I’m pretty certain she’s not even a hundred years old, not to mention the several centuries since Greensleeves became popular.

Then the same guy who sent the SMS called in, since they asked on the air if someone could provide more details. This wasn’t just a random listener, but a repeating one, apparently their music expert. The anchor asked him if indeed there was a version by Loreena McKennitt, and he answered that it’s possible (I assume this meant something like: "I haven’t the foggiest, what the hell do you want from me?!").

The anchor than came with another extra info "And if I’m correct, it’s from her album The Visitor". Again, almost. It’s called "The Visit".  A bit later on he also decided to refer to the song as "Green Leaves" and was surprised when the other anchor told him it’s Sleeves and not Leaves, "…at least according to the SMS".
 

They asked the expert what’s the origin of the song. On this he gave a certain and definitive answer. It’s an old American folk song. American. Let me repeat that in case someone missed it: he said American. I got that nearly-chocking thing again. America is even older than Loreena McKennitt, true, but not that old. At least not the English speaking parts with the cultural background needed to make sense out of Greensleeves. Maybe he thought it was originally composed by some Indian tribe? Lot’s of "Lady Greensleeves" were surely wandering around Indian tribes once.

He than sung some of the words. And the original caller burst in saying that they’re not the right words, they’re different from what his sister sung. This guy just refused to accept his sister put the wrong lyrics to the tune.

Great fun all around.

[Update: Got a reply from Charlie]



In an article in the Inquirer a certain Charlie Demerjian rants about how stupid and greedy are the MPAA and RIAA in their effort to insert DRM to use.

He is of course absolutely right, even if he sometimes uses overly strong and excited language (it IS labeled as a rant after all). This is a bad idea, bad for consumers, and on the medium to long run bad for the main players in the music and movie industries themselves.

Worth reading.



He does however state at one point:

Let me put a personal spin on this. I have not bought a CD since 1998. When the record companies sued Napster, I sat back and said ‘this is wrong’. I thought I would wait it out, and not give them my money until a decision was reached. If the record companies prevailed, I would never buy another CD or give any RIAA member my money. If Napster won, I would go back to buying more than the CD or two I bought every week.



Fast forward. The RIAA won and lost. They spent Napster into the ground, and while I think the fight is far from over, Napster is gone. Sticking to my morals, I have not bought a CD since then, and I have the dubious honor of being able to say the last CD I ever bought was Kid Rock’s Devil Without a Cause. The sad part is that I downloaded most of the album from Napster before I bought it, and said ‘hey, this isn’t bad’. I then bought the album. God, I need to bathe.

Hmm…

Not buying CDs at all, although the resolution was “I would never buy another CD or give any RIAA member my money“. There are plenty of CDs by labels and artists not members in the RIAA. What gives?



So I sent him an email:

Overall I, and probably most other people, agree with
almost everything you wrote in this article.



What I have a problem about is that part of your
personal solution was to stop buying CDs completly.

Not buying copy-protected CDs I get, I actually do
that myself.

Not buying CDs from any RIAA associated company, that
I can get as well, and have noticeably reduced the
amount I buy myself. I haven’t stopped completely,
since the artists deserve something even if they are
stupid enough to stay signed with the RIAA, and even
if they get extremely little, but I can understand.



There are however labels which are not associated with
the RIAA. And artist that choose to work with
independent labels. Yet you don’t buy these either…
This should imply that you are:

A. A consumer by the RIAA model, who stopped buying
music because he can download it, end ergo should not
go around attacking the RIAA for their practices.

B. Only like mainstream RIAA artists. In which case
you should admit they provide a good service by
screening all the music you like, and they do deserve
to get paid for sorting the wheat from the chaff for
you. And ergo you should not go around attacking the
RIAA for their practices.

C. Do buy CDs, and falsely make this statement to help
make your point in the rant article. Which tends to
drastically lower the reliability of everything else
you say, and hurt the causes you try to promote. And
Ergo you should not go around attacking the RIAA for
their practices.

D. Are not even aware of independent labels and
artists, and never noticed that someone releases CDs
without being a RIAA member. This is the best option
here, but it’s quite sad. In which case you should try
resources like the RIAA Radar (
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/ ) to help you find
which CDs are probably not RIAA, or go to stores that
deal only in independent labels, like for example
CDBaby ( http://www.cdbaby.com ). Or just run a
search, I’m sure you’ll find more. This does however
mean that you haven’t got a clue what is going on in
the music industry, and ergo you should not go around
attacking the RIAA for their practices.



Although the RIAA practices do deserve all the
criticism and attack they get, of course.

I wonder what, and if, I’ll get in reply…



Charlie replies:

Actually, I do promote non-riaa music. My record company of choice is
Go-Kart. :)

So he’s familiar with the concept of Indie music (Though, as a totally irrelevant side note, maybe not so much on indie publishing).

He even likes Go-Kart. A shame he thinks that “All record companies are evil, when they dry up and blow away, I will celebrate. Well, all except one.“, since there are actually one or two (or much more) additional record labels which are not associated with the RIAA, but hey, it’s a start.

And from Go-Kart he gets MP3 files, not audio CDs, so he was honest when he claimed he didn’t buy any CDs. The quality differences are noticeable IMNSHO, but maybe he’s not that discriminating, considering he didn’t hear an actual CD in years.

By the same reasoning, however, he won’t buy CDs even if the RIAA change their ways, but rather buy compressed audio files from them too. Which means claiming that he no longer buys CDs is pretty much empty and hollow. The issue is the purchase of music, not purchase of CDs. So why didn’t he just state that he stoppedt buying music from the RIAA? It would have made a much stronger case for his article…

Well, I’m not the one with the publishing and writing experience…