hacktacular

next time, try harder

Can anyone tell me why my iPod’s album art is a thumbnail?

OK…

CD and vinyl album covers generally come in the shape of a square. The iPod’s screen is a 4:3 rectangle. It makes sense that when displaying album art at full screen, the display would be limited to the short edge of the display, thus the white borders on the left and right sides.

So my question is, why, when I have album art that is not square, but closer to the aspect ratio of the iPod, does it still display with the white borders on the left and right?

Take a look at this image:

dismemberment plan small album art

It’s this rather kick-ass shot of the Dismemberment Plan that I’m using as the album art for the recording of a live show. Notice how it’s is in a widescreen ratio? Also notice how it has the same white borders as regular album art, plus some extra thick borders on the top and bottom?

Why does the iPod not scale the image so that I fills up as much of the screen as possible?

I know the iPod has the ability to do that. Just look at the same jpeg, but using the iPod’s Photo capability:

dismemberment plan large photo art

Full screen and lookin pretty cool. I much prefer it that way. So Apple, when you get a chance, please take care of this little over sight.

Until then, I’ll just had to settle for the thumbnail.

Supreme Beings of Leisure: Overlords of Recreation

supreme leisure

The Supreme Beings of Leisure debut has the distinction of being one of two albums that I’ve ever purchased after hearing less than a minute of music from it. The other is The Dandy Warhols Come Down. I bought it shortly after listening to snippets of a couple of songs at a Barnes & Noble kiosk. Incidentally, it’s entirely possible that themodernista sold the cd to me about six months before we officially met.

For a time, I was enthusiastic about it and the record received a lot of play. That was five years ago.

I can truthfully say that, despite the enthusiastic start, the album hasn’t aged very well. Perhaps it’s because it has this kind of big-budget Propellerheads-meets-Portishead slickness to it that comes across as formulaic. Like a Michael Bay film, the Beings produce a superficially appealing work that can’t help but come across as cold and calculated from the start.

Granted, the album’s retro-lounge-spybreak sensibilities do sound good and the music is not unpleasant to listen to. I just can’t escape the feeling that each song was deliberately designed to be used as the establishing background music for trendy night clubs on TV or in as many commercials as possible.

In the end, I think I’ll hang on to it (for a lark), but I won’t respect myself for it.

On iTunes
Supreme Beings of Leisure
Dandy Warhols
Propellerhead
Portishead

In the Minority Report: Disappointment

Minority Report, the 2002 film and it’s accompanying score, are both somewhat disappointing. The normally spirited chemistry between Señor Spielbergo and his personal maestro, Johnny William-san, turns into a cinematic and orchestral mush.

Yeah, like the film, it’s dark and complex and quite technically proficient. But it lacks that certain gravitas that one expects from a Williams’ score.

This is surprising; the dystopian-future themes and settings of the previous year’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence would seem to lend themselves to further musical exploration. Yet, the score to A.I. is one of Williams’ all-time masterpieces while Minority Report is rather forgettable. It’s further surprising considering that the new-millennium has been a new golden age for the composer.

In the end though, I’ve had Minority Report for four years and I’m still struggling to appreciate it. Thus, i’m disappointed to say that this is one score that will soon be leaving my library.

medulla

I could probably be accused of not "getting it," but i’m really disappointed with Bjork’s Medulla. that’s not a pun. In the past, I’ve been appreciative of her ability to push boundaries and experiment while making those experiments listenable and appealing, but after multiple false starts, I just can’t get into this album. Though, it doesn’t lessen my respect for her as an artist, I will have to say that it’s likely that this album will be leaving my collection.

Hopefully, her next album will be more palatable to my tastes.

Foo Fighters descent into wuss rock?

I’m currently listening to Foo Fighters 2005 double-album, In Your Honor, and for some reason, it feels like a chore. Foo Fighters has been a perennial-favorite band around these parts, but, starting with There’s Nothing Left to Lose, each album gets increasingly more disappointing. and that’s ironic, because the band’s popularity and mainstream success seems to be inversely proportional to its slide toward mediocrity.

I don’t know if Dave and company are simply having a shortage of ideas or if it’s a matter of production values. My general feeling is that it’s the latter. The songwriting is generally on the up-and-up though there’s nothing like everlong or oh, george or even stacked actors, but In Your Honor, much like One by One before it, gives off the strong impression of being over-produced. Not so much on the acoustic second disc, but the first “hard rock” disc reeks of it. The mixing just plain smells bad and dave’s vocals are lost in the mud.

The first few Foo Fighters albums benefited from the rough edges provided by Dave Grohl doing all the work himself. Those records have an caution-to-the-wind, do-it-yourself spirit, and were even released on Dave’s own label (Roswell records). but most importantly, they were a little bit quirky and a lot of fun.

Somewhere during the There’s Nothing Left to Lose era, however, it seems that the band somehow earned corporate credibility. It even won a Grammy for Best Rock Album. I’m not the kind of person who cries "sellout!" when someone finds success, but it’s around this time that Foo Fighters’ sound and attitude changed, becoming more polished and increasingly likely to be the "go to" band for "mainstream media" rock events. In 2006, it’s really not that hard to imagine Foo Fighters splitting the bill with Aerosmith to headline a Superbowl halftime show. Oooo, I know that’s cold, but think about it, would you be surprised by that?

If i were a meaner person, I might suggest that the band has intentionally watered-down its sound in order to court commercial success (c’mon, a duet with norah jones??). But I’m not that guy. I’d rather just listen to the music and hope that the band turns it around.

James Horner – Enemy at the Gates: Hacktackular

enemy at the gates

James Horner is a hack.

That’s my opinion. Some people think he’s a good or even great composer. I don’t. I happen think he has precisely 1.5 Good scores to his credit, namely Star Trek 2 and 3. Those two score, I also happen to think, are among the finest score of the late 20th century, with an asterisk. (the asterisk being that the highlights of each are highly derivative of Prokofiev).

I mention it because I listened to Horner’s score for the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates today and was once again frustrated by the music. Despite my accusation above, Horner can be a talented composer, I just think he’s fond of shortcuts that lower the quality of the final product. For example, this Enemy at the Gates score opens with the type of epic 15+ minute suite The River Crossing to Stalingrad that I am quite fond of. It effectively incorporates an all-male chorus and evokes the same Slavic character that I enjoy in Dvorak’s and Tchaikovsky’s work. Additionally, there are some really nice melodic passages throughout the score.

But…

And this is a deal-breaker, horner re-guritates the same "Menace" Motif that he originally wrote for StarTrek 2 (1982) and already recycled at least once for Aliens (1986). And this motif is everywhere in the score, ruining what might have been compelling music.

It’s not the motif’s fault really. It’s actually a simple and effective couple of bars of music. But in my mind, it is far too overused and too closely related to Khan for it to work anywhere else. So I may hang on the opening suite, but the rest of this score will be departing my library.

Shatner Rapping: No Tears for Caesar

Part of the Musical Star Trek Actors Series

  1. Shatner Rapping: No Tears for Caesar
  2. Leonard Nimoy – Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space

Below is the music video for No Tears For Caesar, available on the bonus materials DVD for Free Enterprise.


William Shatner raps some Shakespeare, Marc Anthony’s speech from Julius Caesar specifically. And true to form, the good Cap’n Kirk doesn’t disappoint; he’s always entertaining when he’s got a microphone. That’s the theory behind those old priceline.com ads anyway.

The song and video No Tears For Caesar from the 1998 movie Free Enterprise (a film tailor-made for the post-modern Star Trek fan) are, as Spock would say, fascinating little productions. Shatner rapping… well not rapping so much as doing his trademark spoken word routine, a kind of precursor to 2004’s Has Been.

In any event, I whole-heartedly recommend the film. It’s worth it for Shatner alone, but has lots of other trek-related gems, like Jerry Goldsmith references! and yes, i’m genuinely excited by those.

Oh. this isn’t Shatner’s only Shakespeare recording; his 1968 record The Transformed Man contains some much-exaggerated spoken word from Hamlet, Henry V and Romeo & Juliet.

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