Flower Sniffin Kitty Pettin Baby Kissin Corporate Rock Whores

So, there's a new Nirvana album out today; yet another "best of" collection, as Kurt Cobain has been deceased for 16 years, making recording new music challenging. The new cd is called Icon.

Catchy artwork, eh? I don't think it could get any more streamlined and sterilized. It features 11 previously released tracks. In other words, there is absolutely nothing new here for long time fans. And at 11 songs, it's not even a good primer for casual fans, or youngsters curious about Nirvana. So, what's the point? Especially when there was already a best of collection released in 2002...

with essentially the same track list, except for About A Girl (acoustic), which has been available on the Unplugged In New York album since 1994. The 2002 best of album at least included a then unreleased song, proportedly the last song Nirvana ever recorded. Something for the die hards to nibble on. It also featured 14 tracks, which isn't a bad amount for a casual Nirvana fan to familiarize themselves with the band's overall output.

Even so, Nirvana only recorded 3 studio albums. Each one of them is worth owning. So is a best of all that necessary? Let alone 2 best of albums, that have essentially the same track list? Maybe that's just a fan talking. I am a big Nirvana fan, admittedly, so I think all of their albums are worth owning. Except for these two. With only 3 studio albums, it's not that difficult to find a starting point. Pick one of the 3, and if you like it, get the other two. And if you like all three, by golly, you're a Nirvana fan.

I do understand how best of albums can be a good thing though. I own several myself. It's a good way to get a taste for a band, especially when the band has an extensive catalog. So, maybe I'm a hypocrite. Maybe it's impossible to approve of a best of album for a band that you have followed for a long time. There's always the knee jerk reaction that no "best of" track list can ever really do the band justice. For instance, between these two "best of" albums, there is only one track from the Bleach album, my personal favorite. But that's precisely my problem with a Nirvana best of; they only had three studio albums. That's 37 songs. You could squeeze nearly all of them on a good two disc set. Cherry pick the real "gems," and you have room to include stuff from Incesticide (their covers album) and Unplugged In New York (their acoustic album). Maybe even a live track or two. Or, I don't know, something previously unreleased, so the loyal fans have something in which to be interested.

Courtney Love has gone on record saying that she has 107 tapes of Nirvana/Kurt Cobain recordings, afterall. No matter what the quality, fans would love to hear some of that. Kurt's untimely and tragic death has left fans wanting to collect anything and everything that the band recorded. The singles box set, which features recordings that were once very rare, still sells for over $100. Nirvana shirts are still sold in Hot Topic stores (and Target, oddly enough...). Their songs are still played on the radio. And if you have anyone in your life around the age of 30, you've likely been told how life changing Smells Like Teen Spirit was back in 1991. There's still a high demand for Nirvana material. So if it's about the filthy lucre, why not tap the vaults a bit to release more goodies to the fans? Why yet another collection of songs they already have?

To its credit, Icon is at least affordable. $8 on Amazon at the moment. That's less than $1 per song. Well, until you add shipping costs. Then it's about the same price as iTunes, or one of their three studio albums. Bottom line, there's no point to this collection. It's not a good representation of the band's discography. There's nothing special for long time fans. It has the hits, but the hits aren't always the best songs. 

For a good introduction to Nirvana, pick up the Live At Reading album. It captures an important moment in the band's history (their last show in Europe), it presents a good cross section of their discography, and it features the band in their prime. And you really can't go wrong with either Nevermind or In Utero.

Nevermind is probably an easier ride for first timers. It's their most pop album. In Utero is a bit rougher around the edges. Heavier, more screaming, angrier tone in general. Bleach, to me, is the perfect blending, even though it came first. But Bleach also only cost $600 to record, so it may be a little too muddy for most. The newly releases special edition of Bleach cleaned up the mud, and also includes an early live show from the band. I like the mud better, but it's a good listen. Unplugged In New York is excellent. It really captures the band's song writing abilities. Where Did You Sleep Last Night is a haunting capstone to the set, which is filled with unique takes on some of their classic songs, and many covers that threaten to outshine the originals. They even manage to have some fun while playing. But it's not necessarily a good representation of the bands usual sound, and it's not filled with hits. It's a unique performance. From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah has been outshone by Live at Reading. It's mostly for absolute completeists now. And Incesticide showcases the band's ability to take another artist's song and make it their own. It's my second favorite Nirvana album really, but again, no hits. it's mostly a collection of b-sides and covers. Pick it up if you can find it, but not until you've checked out their other albums. 

But avoid the "best of" cash ins.      

Piranah 3-D: Finally a horror remake that doesn't bite!

I don't know if I'm crazy, masochistic, or just stupid, but somehow I've managed to see two horror remakes so far this year. One of them was pretty painful to watch. The other was exactly what I had hoped for (Well, almost). One was A Nightmare On Elm Street. The other was Piranah 3-D. I'll give you 5 seconds to guess which one I actually enjoyed.

Piranah 3-D was a fun ride, and really nothing more. But it didn't need to be. It needed to be cheesy C.G.I. fish, chomping on some nubile young co-eds, and it was.  I didn't expect, or want, a deeply philosophical examination of human nature as told through the persepective of optimistic young adults contemplating morality as they're running from an unstoppable force of unrelentingly aggressive animals. I wanted to see some big toothed fish rip some people apart. And that's what I saw. Lots of it. And in 3-D! Well, kinda...

I'm a curmudgeon when it comes to technology. I believe my cell phone is for making phone calls. I still play my 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System more than I do any other newer system. I've held a Wii controller for around 2 hours cummulatively. And for a few of those minutes, I actually figured out how to move the cursor around on the screen. I have the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat blood code memorized (All together now: A, B, A, C, A, B, B). I didn't discover podcasts until sometime last year.

What I'm getting at is, when I hear the word 3-D, I still expect red and green glasses with things jumping off the screen. The synapses in my brain fail to understand that "Real 3-D" is different. So when I saw the preview for Piranah 3-D, I thought, "Cheesy C.G.I. fish, random nubile co-ed limbs, and fish guts jumping off the screen, right at me?! Yes, please!" But, this is Avatar 3-D; immersive, atmospheric... In other words, no flying fish guts. Thatt's my only complaint. A part of me wanted the old school 3-D of yore with this one. I still think that type of 3-D was practically made for horror movies. The appeal of a horror movie is to examine the macabre, the dark side of our minds, via blood 'n' guts. If 2-D blood 'n' guts is fun, 3-D blood 'n' guts is even more fun. And afterall, Piranah 3-D is a remake of the 1978 original. A somewhat loose remake that doesn't try to ape everything that the original presented. Piranah 3-D takes the basic premise of the original, amps up the fun parts (hence, more nubile young co-eds, more blood, goofy amounts of gore), and takes pride in the fact that it's a throwback to the fun days of horror.

Which brings me to the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake, and why that one didn't work for me. I am a fan of the Nightmare series; even the admittedly bad ones. But I don't worship at the altar of Robert Englund. He's great as Freddy, but I'm more of a Friday the 13th guy. So when they announced that Fred Kreuger would be played by someone else, I wasn't livid like many fans. I like Jackie Earl Haley, in fact. And he was good, the few minutes he was actually on screen.

He brought something new to the character. I liked his nervous hand twitch thing. I liked that he was less flashy; less of a showman. I like that they tried to make him look more like an actual burn victim... although the end result reminded me of Voldemort. I liked the few minutes of pre-burn victim Freddy backstory. I liked the drug store scene as well.

But I didn't like much else. In my opinion, the 80's and 90's Nightmares worked because the nubile co-eds were average American teens. You knew people like them. They actually passed for high schoolers. You cared that they were getting torn apart and terrorized. They weren't unrealistically beautiful, or one dimensional stereotypes (for the most part), and most of them actually stood somewhat of a chance against Freddy. Conversely, the remake is filled with unrealistically beautiful girls trying to pass for high schoolers. The ones that aren't abnormally attractive are stereotypically artsy, dark and brooding.

The original worked, because it was subtle and creepy. The budget called for practical improvisation. What they couldn't do with flashy technology, they made up for with atmosphere. It didn't rely on C.G.I. and sonic boom surround sound jump scares. Freddy was calculating. He messed with their heads and discovered their fears, instead of popping up now and then and whispering "Boo!" or in this case, "Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut you yet."

I will admit, I made a mistake before going to see the Nightmare remake. I watched the original minutes before. They re-created so many of the original, iconic scenes that it was really hard to keep from comparing the two. And they recreated them thinking that bigger = better. So the creepy slow drag across the ceiling turned into a blurry, incoherent scene that would have fit in The Bourne Identity. The subtle head through the wall scene turned into a ridiculously over the top C.G.I. mess. It had the subtlety of a jack hammer root canal. Creepy was replaced with loud and fast. Not only did it take every scene from the original and "modernize" then, it ripped off movies that were freshly out of the theater. **Cough Paranormal Activity Cough**

It's a real shame, because they could have really done something different. You have a killer who haunts his victims' dreams. The setting possibilities are endless. A darker, creepier Freddy? Have him explore their fears and really use it against them. Drive them insane until they off themselves. Or, put them in Freddy's mind, so they can see and feel his madness, and fear him even more. That was a further frustration for me; the remake touched upon a possibly interesting twist in the Fred Kreuger legend, but didn't have the balls to follow through with it. Why bring the idea up if you're just going to throw it away seconds later?

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) was a dreary reminder of what happens when a director takes a horror movie too seriously. Piranah 3-D was a reminder that it's ok to have fun with horror movies.

Here's the trailer for Piranah 3D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW5_4gZ0Jn4

And the one for A Nightmare On Elm Street:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEQnoIq4UFY  

Track Listed

And another thing about albums... Since when did it become hip to hide the track list? Here's Dark Side of the Moon; arguably one of the best albums ever recorded.

But, where's the track list? It's printed on the cd itself:

Which is fine, unless you want to listen to the cd, and know what song you're hearing at the same time. I guess you'll just have to write down the track list before playing the cd.

Tool is known for having some of the most creative and interesting album covers, and 10,000 Days is certainly no exception. It features some really trippy psychadelic images, which are cool on their own, but even cooler when viewed through the stereoscopic lenses.

But where's the track list? Not on the back cover, not on the cd itself, not even on the inside cover. It's on page 28 of the cd booklet.

Still that's not as bad as The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. The track list isn't on the special cd cover...

 not on the cd cover...

not on the cd itself...

                                                                                                                                     

It's inside the lyric book. And even then, it's tiny and hard to read.                                                           

But hiding the track list is better than getting creative with it. Take Europe '72 by the Grateful Dead, for example. It's a two cd set, but the track list is on the back of the second cd.                                         

So if you're listening to disc one, you have to have disc two nearby if you want to know what songs are on disc one... This was originally a 3 disc vinyl album. Does that mean there were 6 different lists, one for each side of each album?                                                                                                                                

Here's Monsters by the Meat Puppets.                                                                                                    

                                      

A nice, easy to read tracklist, right on the back of the album. Except, the songs aren't numbered. So, is Touchdown King the second song, or is Light? To find out, you have to open the cover and look at the actual cd, and just memorize the order.                                                                                               

Some bands put the track list around the border of the album, so as not to impede upon the artwork, which means you have to turn the album to read it.                                                                                              

No big deal, really, but it's still kind of annoying.                                                                                        

                                                 

And then there's Ozzy.

                                                                                                                              

He's not called the Prince of Darkness for nothing. Look at his tracklist:                                                        

A circle?! That's just plain EVIL!                                                                                                                 

But the worst offender, at least from my own personal collection, is the Pixies.                                             

 

I love the Pixies, but this track list is just a mess. No numbers, multi-layered tracklist... Do you start with      Motorway to Rocswell, and just make your way around? No. Although that makes the most logical sense,    the first song is actually Trompe Le Monde, on the top right hand corner. So logically, that should make        Lovely Day track two. But track two is actually Planet of Sound, three song titles away from Trompe Le     Monde on the back cover. Track three is Alec Eiffel, which is actually listed BEHIND Trompe Le Monde on the back cover, which would make you think it's the second to last song, or the seventh song, if this track list made any kind of sense... Thankfully the band was merciful enough to list the track list, numerically and in order, on the first page of the booklet. But I have to wonder if this track list nonsense contributed to the        lukewarm sales of Trompe Le Monde.                                                                                                       

                                                                                                        

Here's what a tracklist should look like:

It's easy to read, numerical, doesn't impede the artwork, and it's right smack on the back album cover, so you can refer to it as you're listening to the cd. Bands could learn a lot from Fugazi, and not just from their coherent track lists. But that's a rant for another time...                                                                             

Quit titling yourself! Quit titling yourself!

I love albums. I own close to 500 of them on last count, and that's just my cds. I also appreciate a clever album title. Finally the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid, Bad Music For Bad People, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, Stripper Christmas Summer Weekend, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (get it?), etc. But "self titled" albums bother me. For starters, aren't all albums technically self titled? I mean, if the band themselves aren't naming their own albums, who is? It's not like someone just burst through the recording studio doors and said, "Right! Your album shall be called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!" and the Beatles just had to roll with it. "Oi! Pink Floyd! This album shall be called The Wall! Better start building a concept around that, mates!"

Self titled just seems lazy. I mean really... Albums have an average of around 13 songs. Each of those songs have a title. You really can't pull out one more title from your magic hat of creativity? Your creativity is completely tapped out after 13 titles? Why not just name the album after one of the songs? Thriller was one of the bast selling albums of all time, and it's just named after one of the songs on the album. Or go meta with it and actually name your album Self Titled? That's at least kind of funny. Or call it Album Number 2, or Album Number 3, etc. No, instead they just leave the title blank, so fans have to assign nicknames to the album when they want to talk about it. Thus "Metallica" becomes "The Black Album."

And "Weezer" becomes "The Red Album."

                                                      And "Weezer" becomes "The Green Album."

                                                     And "Weezer" becomes "The Blue Album."

Yes, Weezer has THREE self titled albums to date. "What's your favorite Weezer album?" "Well, I like Weezer, but it's not as good as Weezer... Still, they'll never top Weezer."
Why not just actually name the album "The Red Album," "The Green Album", and "The Blue Album"? That idea worked for Primus:

                                                             
Why "The Brown Album"? Because forcing your fans to assign nicknames to your album because you're too lazy to name it yourself is a bunch of crap.

And then there's this album:

                                                    
It has no official title. Some fans call it Zoso, because the "word" Zoso appears in the album booklet artwork. Some fans call it symbols, because of the symbols in the album booklet artwork. Some fans call it Zeppelin IV, because it's their 4th album, and it was preceeded by Zeppelin II and Zeppelin III. But there's no Zeppelin V or Zeppelin VI. In fact, the original record didn't have the bands name anywhere on it. And the whole "nickname the album based on the cover color" idea doesn't work here. The cracked drywall album? Also, Led Zeppelin already had a self titled album before this one:

                                            
So do you call that album "Horrific Photograph of the Hindenburg Tragedy," and the other album "Old Man With a Bundle of Sticks On His Back"? Catchy titles there.

And then there's The Breeders. Their album ended up being called Title TK.

                                                 
Title TK is journalistic shorthand for "Title to come," as in this album is not yet titled. As in "The Breeders are recording a new album, (title TK), which will hit stores..." But somewhere along the line, someone thought the album was actually called Title TK, so it stuck. And the band just rolled with. Moral of the story: name your own albums, or someone else will.

Kick-Ass Redbox experience

I rented my first Redbox movie last weekend. I've tried to be a hold out as long as I could, but the cool mom and pop video rental stores left town awhile ago, and frankly, Blockbuster isn't any fun to go to anymore. I don't want stale candy, a Joker bobblehead, or $30 Bob Marley framed art. I just want to rent a movie. To be honest, I jumped ship to Netflix months ago, and really haven't looked back. You can only browse the same rows of the same movies for so long before instant streaming sounds glorious. But there was just something about that foreboding redbox... A vending machine for movies? Outrageous! vending machines are for candy bars and sodas and cigarettes, dagnabit! (Remember cigarette vending machines? Who ever thought that was a good idea?) But, I wanted to check out Kick-Ass, I was standing outside a Redbox dispensary, and temptation hit. So I gave it a shot. And... I think I'll be sticking with Netflix. You just really can't beat the whole "keep it as long as you want with no late fees" thing. Also, the "I'm too lazy to go to the store, but my mailbox is only a few short feet away" thing. And sometimes you have to stand in line to return a Redbox movie, like when I went to return Kick-Ass. And who wants to do that these days? That particular evening, the day after it was due, I happened upon a carload of people in line ahead of me; a fine American family by all visual accounts, with pop and son huddled around the dispensary, as mom and daughter waited with baited breath in the mini-van for their providers to return with their great cinematic bounty. This particular outing, it was to be one video for each family member. All purchased at the same time. All vying to be shot out of the slot simultaneously, thus creating a dvd traffic jam inside the machine. What should have been a simple seconds long transaction consumed several minutes of valuable lazy time as pop and son warriors jostled the machine until it finally produced the requested media. In short, Redbox just really didn't seem worth it. Maybe when there's a film that I missed in the theaters, don't want to own, but still cannot WAIT to see as immediately as possible. Given the state of current cinema, I don't see that happening very often. Then again, I missed Kick-Ass in the theater, didn't really want to own it, but was interested enough to want it now instead of waiting for Netflix, so there you go. The plastic cases do protect the discs better than a paper sleeve though. I'll give them that much.

As for the movie itself, I enjoyed it. I didn't know much about it going into it, save that it's about kids wanting to be real-life superheroes, and McLovin' is in it. Poor guy... His tombstone will say, "You know, McLovin', from Superbad." And he'll be burried right next to Stiffler. I expected it to be more of a comedy in the same vein as Mystery Men, but with actual violence and no Paul Reubens, but it was much more of a dark comedy/action movie. And it stars Nicholas Cage. No idea he was in Kick-Ass. And Nicholas Cage is one of those actors that I either love or hate, depending on the movie. He is fantastic in Adaptation, and he annoys the hell out of me in nearly all of his comedic roles. But he was a good fit for Kick-Ass. The movie felt a lot like a comic book, which is both good and bad. Good in that the action never really stopped. There weren't any moments that felt too long or drawn out. But at the same time, I found myself actually wanting a little more story from time to time. Some of the motivations felt too simplistic, which again works for a comic book, but maybe not so much for a movie. I'm not a very big comic book reader, but I respect them. I understand the appeal. They're meant to be short experiences with enough action and exposition to keep you reading week to week, but not heartbroken if you miss one or two installments. The action was fun. I like a good blood fest as much as the next guy. I don't really see why the violence was such a hot button issue with this movie though. It didn't seem any more gratuitous than any other action movie. People also made a big stink about Hit Girl's potty mouth. Let's be real; kids much younger than she is say much worse things these days. One MF bomb is not that shocking anymore. What was shocking to me was the on screen violence against Hit Girl. I don't know... It was just a little hard for me to watch a grown man beating up on a little girl, even though at that point we know she can hold her own. So, the cliched question: Does Kick-Ass kick ass? I'd say it kicks ass in the way that it kicks ass when Lynyrd Skynyrd plays Sweet Home Alabama in concert. It's pretty much as you would expect, it's not very surprising, it's not all that special, but it's still kinda fun.

What the Hell Is a Mangorilla?!

Hello, my name is Ben, a.k.a. the Mangorilla. That's Man-gorilla, as in a combination of a man and a gorilla. Not Mango-rilla, or Man-gore-illa, or any other nonsensical combination therein. I'm a hair covered man-beast, hence Mangorilla. I am not a citrus delight, or a combination of a man, gore, and whatever an illa is. My name is Mangorilla, and I'm a music and movie geek. It's been 11 days since my last music purchase, 7 days since my last movie outing, and 27 days since my last concert. I'm trying to quit the hard stuff, but without a sponsor, support group, 12 step mantra, or will to do so, I don't see it happening. Anyhow, this is my blog. I hate that word almost as much as I hate when people use Google as a verb, but I just have to suck it up and accept that blog is part of our vernacular now.  In this blog, I shall speak of music, movies, and general pop cultural goings on, and how they relate to the life of a modern Mangorilla. Welcome to my lair. Hope you enjoy the blog. Thanks for reading. Introduction entries suck.