‘Crazy Heart’ soundtrack
Rating: B
Good news, everybody, you have an easy present for your parents’ birthdays this year!
In recent years the musician and producer T. Bone Burnett has specialized in making albums for people who still buy CDs. He put together the platinum-selling “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack and brought together Alison Kraus and Robert Plant for their admittedly great “Raising Sand” album.
Burnett was involved with “Crazy Heart” since the movie’s inception. In many ways it’s the ideal vehicle for his particular musical vision, allowing him to bridge the past with the present.
“Crazy Heart” is about the redemption of a washed-up, alcoholic country singer played by Jeff Bridges, an actor perhaps best remembered for his role in the 1976 Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding film “Stay Hungry.”
Burnett penned a number of new songs for Bridges to sing that sound at home in the past. Bridges, who is the front-runner to win the Oscar for best actor, sounds appropriately world-weary as a vocalist.
The music of “Crazy Heart” is a mix of originals and perfectly chosen classics by the Louvin Brothers, Waylon Jennings and Townes Van Zandt. The originals are performed by Bridges and alt-country singer Ryan Bingham and cloaked in that haunting, roomy production Burnett has perfected, where the instrument separation gives the songs a three-dimensional sound.
If the soundtrack has a failing, it’s that it sounds a little too tasteful, but then again it wouldn’t be the perfect Father’s Day gift if it weren’t.
Ke$ha: ‘Animal’
Rating: D
In a recent profile of Ke$ha in The New York Times, there was a funny story about how she was discovered.
Back before she added a dollar sign to her given name, she got a call from super-producer Luke “Dr. Luke” Gottwald about a demo she’d sent him. At the time, her family was hosting Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie at their Nashville home for the short-lived reality television show “The Simple Life.”
Ritchie hung up on Dr. Luke, in what I’m going to assume was a heroic attempt to save us all from the eventual unkillable single “Tik Tok.”
Last week Ke$ha’s debut album “Animal” was the No. 1 album in the country, driven in part by making digital sales history when “Tik Tok” was downloaded 610,000 times in one week. I actually listened to “Animal” expecting to like it after reading that Dr. Luke and Max Martin — pop heroes responsible for hits like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Miley Cyrus’ “Party In the USA” and Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” — had produced and written many of the tracks.
Unfortunately, to enjoy “Animal” you have to be on board with the personality of Ke$ha because it overpowers every song, and Ke$ha is so abrasive and obnoxious I spent most of my time listening to “Animal” hoping that in the next song she’d die from some combination of cocaine and prescription meds.
I know, of course, Kesha isn’t really “Ke$ha” — a young woman whose greatest aspiration appears to be joining the cast of “Jersey Shore.” I know this because in one song she brags she isn’t the “designated driver.” Obviously, we all know from reading the tabloids that real party starlets just drive drunk, and in “Tik Tok” she also claims to listen to CDs, which is something only old people do — see the above review of the “Crazy Heart” soundtrack.
She also says “hot mess” a lot. Obviously, middle-aged white guys created this personality.
And I wouldn’t have a problem with that if Ke$ha’s manufactured persona didn’t extol the worst of America’s junk culture or if it were as interesting as whatever it is Lady Gaga is doing.
While much of the music is big and catchy, Ke$ha’s atonal, AutoTune-inflected singing and rapping over techno and electro-pop beats comes uncomfortably close to the sound of the worst band in the history of music, BrokeNCYDE (YouTube it). Until Ke$ha, I never thought this band had a chance, but now its rise to some sort of cultural dominance seems that much closer. I weep for the future of America’s youth.
Love those lyrics
Here are lines from Ke$ha’s debut album, “Animal,” that I enjoyed:
“I like your beard”
“Get my drunk text on”
Song of the Week
John Travolta: “Every Little Step” (featuring his daughter Ella Bleu)
This song makes for a good cautionary tale. Never record a cover of a Bobby Brown song with your daughter and upload a music video of it to YouTube. This is doubly true if the song is to promote your movie “Old Dogs,” which will no doubt be played in hell.
Address correspondence to Jeremiah Tucker, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802.
