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Titanium Dome
12-19-2006, 04:52 PM
At the Tower Records closing in Campbell, CA, I picked up the Telarc SACD of Erich Kunzel/Cincinnati Pops/King's Singers doing the Beatles.

This is a wonderful sounding disc of unimaginable frustration for me as a listener. At times, it's beautiful, brilliant work, and at others it's just :wtf: I really mean WTF? :die:

Eclectic doesn't begin to describe it; maybe erratic or "exalted and egregious." :bash:

Do you have any discs/albums that make you feel this way?

johnaec
12-19-2006, 04:59 PM
Erich Kunzel/Cincinnati Pops/King's Singers doing the Beatles.I remember when the Beatles first came out, and my parents got me my first "Beatles" record for my birthday - "Tony Bennet Sings the Beatles"... :spchless:

John

Fred Sanford
12-19-2006, 05:22 PM
Recently picked up a copy of George Benson covering Beatles songs (Abbey Road?). A few good :wtf: moments on that one, for sure.

je

morbo!
12-20-2006, 12:07 PM
I do have a shitload of william shatner on my hdd
some lennard nimoy too:blink:

Titanium Dome
12-20-2006, 12:22 PM
I do have a shitload of william shatner on my hdd
some lennard nimoy too:blink:

Ha ha, he's a "Rocket Man."

http://www.devilducky.com/media/21099/

hjames
12-20-2006, 04:00 PM
Ha ha, he's a "Rocket Man."

http://www.devilducky.com/media/21099/

Poor Shat - just a shell of who he once was ...

According to the critic for WaPo (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/17/AR2006121701138.html)
... William Shatner, whose career now consists almost entirely of mortifying self-parody, also has done a Mandellian turn in ABC's horrific (gameshow) monstrosity "Show Me the Money."

What more can you say ... never more a man than James Tiberius Kirk ...

SEAWOLF97
12-21-2006, 09:17 PM
I do have a shitload of william shatner on my hdd
some lennard nimoy too:blink:

Lucy in the sky with diamonds....shatners version is SO bad.....

Ducatista47
12-21-2006, 09:45 PM
Not to throw water on the WS funfest - I loved the tv commercials a few years ago - but William Shatner's Has Been is a damn good CD. Mostly spoken word rather than any attempt at singing, his poems are mature, stark and emotionally powerful. His delivery of the material is mostly excellent. Ben Folds produced. http://www.shatnerhasbeen.com/

There are pieces by other writers, some nice covers of amusing works. The guest performances handle the singing, notably Joe Jackson in the strongest performance I can remember from him. The reliable Henry Rollins is a scream.

When this CD is not somber and moving, it is very funny. You can't lose.

Clark in Peoria

hjames
12-22-2006, 05:03 AM
Not to throw water on the hatefest - I loved the tv commercials a few years ago - but William Shatner's Has Been is a damn good CD. Mostly spoken word rather than any attempt at singing, his poems are mature, stark and emotionally powerful. His delivery of the material is mostly excellent. Ben Folds produced. http://www.shatnerhasbeen.com/

There are pieces by other writers, some nice covers of amusing works. The guest performances handle the singing, notably Joe Jackson in the strongest performance I can remember from him. The reliable Henry Rollins is a scream.

When this CD is not somber and moving, it is very funny. You can't lose.

Clark in Peoria

Oh come on, its not hate, its amusement ...
he's been a hoot since his very early appearances - look at that Twilight Zone episode where he freaks out over the gremlin on the outside of the plane ... Nightmare at 20000 feet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_at_20,000_Feet_%28The_Twilight_Zone%29) ... and there so much before that early '60s performance ...

So early, so over the top ...

Bob Womack
12-22-2006, 06:01 AM
A definite love/hate experience for me is Yes's Symphonic Music of Yes, 1993. Talk about your all over the map experience: from genius to elevator music. It's a horrifying trip down the lane of "What could possibly go wrong with setting good music to orchestra with the original players and writers participating?" A n appropriate subtitle for this work might be "Steve Howe Settles Some Old Scores With Rick Wakeman", as Steve, who co-produced the album, wrote Rick's parts out of the arrangements regularly.

Still and all, there are some gems: "Soon", originally encased in that appalling "Relayer" fiasco (sorry guys), has become a lovely instrumental featuring several examples from Steve's large collection of vintage string instruments. My website calls this cut, "the best Pop orchestra/guitar integration I’ve heard", and I'll stand by it. It's a great romantic, soul-stirring rendition.

Then there's the audio quality. Yes, I know that Yes has always preferred Westlake mix rooms (hard front, compression ceilings, and absorptive back), so you can expect imaging to be kinda smeared, but they brought in Alan Parsons this time to record the orchestra at CTS studios, for heaven's sake. Still, there's a harsh edge to the mixes I can't quite understand, and an odd quality to the ambience that is reminiscent of... But wait, look on the back cover and it all becomes clear: "This program has been produced with the Dolby Surround encoding system and is fully compatible with both stereo and monaural equipment." In fact, a push of the surround button makes it ALL clear, including the mixes: They sacrificed the sound of the stereo mixes in order to encode surround mixes. Because of the time frame (1993), Elliot Scheiner hasn't yet done his excellent work to set the framework for surround mixes so we don't get real, wide surround mixes in the trade-off, but instead, end up with what sounds like a reduced volume copy of the front left and right mixes with ambience added in the rears. Ahhhh, that's what happened to the ambience!

Truly a mixed bag, love-hate experience of the first order!

Bob

Titanium Dome
12-22-2006, 08:43 AM
Excellent example. I must hear it now to love/hate it. :bouncy:

whizzer
12-22-2006, 09:08 AM
Awww--c'mon now! Denny Crane borders on genius--and could anyone ever have delivered the line, "Shop and compare?" with such earnestness--with the possible exception of Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon? Thank god William Shatner has never never never displayed any evidence whatsoever of taking himself seriously.

Ducatista47
12-22-2006, 10:27 AM
Sorry, I didn't mean to use the word hate. I edited the remark. There are actually some deadly serious pieces on Has Been. But they are very dark and very good. The rest is wonderful parody.

Did anyone catch him in The Brothers Karamazov film? Since I saw it in the theater first run I don't remember much. That might predate all the TV appearences I've seen. Notice that the cited Twilight Zone episode was considered classic enough to make the cut in the Twilight Zone movie. Better actor, of course. :D

You want to see a great actor sleepwalking disastrously through a role, catch Jason Robarts Jr in Julius Caesar(1970). He was hitting the bottle pretty hard. "Brutus" delivered his lines in his best monotone and never entirely opened his eyes. Marlon Brando did much better in 1953. I didn't know Mark Antony could mumble!

Clark in Peoria

Steve Schell
12-23-2006, 02:14 PM
I just recently discovered Show Me the Money and have to admit to enjoying it enormously. It is the perfect vehicle for William Shatner, who is able to dance like an Egyptian, flirt with the female contestants and do whatever the hell else he feels like doing at the moment. He has never looked happier, and the mood is contagious. The show also has dancing girls, a delightfully over the top set design and contestants' fortunes that rise and fall very rapidly. Who could ask for more?

Titanium Dome
12-23-2006, 03:18 PM
I've seen the show. Love the Shat. Hate the cheese. I can watch it a little, then I start to pity him; then I think he's getting what he wants out of it; then I hate him for doing it; then I respect him for doing it; then I resent him for being such a whore; then I love the fact that he's HOW OLD? and can get away with this shit; then despise the stupidity of American celebrity worship; then idolize him for giving the whole world the finger while everyone applauds; then I just laugh and cry repeatedly 'til it's over. :nutz: