Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Arts & Entertainment

Music Review
Sharps & Flats
"Earbox" collects the intricate grace and visionary minimalism of John Adams.
By Patrick Giles
[12/09/99]

Column
Beautiful dreamer
"End of the Affair" director Neil Jordan talks about sex, Catholicism and why "God is the greatest imaginary being of all time."
By Michael Sragow
[12/09/99]

Music Review
Sharps & Flats
For some reason, the Underworld let remixers with a lot less talent rework the U.K. outfit's songs.
By Michelle Goldberg
[12/07/99]

Column
Breaking up is hard to do
"Buffy" hits a creative funk, but its spinoff "Angel" is in the groove.
By Joyce Millman
[12/06/99]

Movie Review
"Sweet and Lowdown"
Rising star Samantha Morton shines in this charming, finely crafted film from Woody Allen.
By Stephanie Zacharek
[12/03/99]

Complete archives for Arts & Entertainment

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Vonda Shepard
"Heart and Soul: New Songs From 'Ally McBeal'"
Epic

The songs on "Heart and Soul: New Songs From 'Ally McBeal'" might be the most disappointing thing on television since the final episode of "Seinfeld." The saddest part of "Ally McBeal" is that, in the past, writer David E. Kelley has shown that he understands the way that music works in everyday life better than most anyone. We wrap ourselves around songs. A pop number's greatest power is the meaning we assign it. Kelly knows this. He'll base a show around a Barry White song or hang an episode on the premise that Ally sees hallucinations of Al Green.

The problem with this release then? Where to begin? Let's start with vocalist and star Vonda Shepard -- a poor woman's Lucinda Williams at best, a two-bit piano lounge singer at worst. Shepard, who appears in almost every show fronting the bar band that plays where the lawyers unwind, murders some terrific songs on this collection of 14 from the show. It's almost criminal what she does to "Crying," flattening out all of the sharp trills that Roy Orbison once gave it. She over-sings the Beatles' "World Without Love" and complicates the simple tune with superfluous melodies.

Not even ace producer Mitchell Froom, who's worked with everyone from Suzanne Vega to Los Lobos to Cibo Matto, can save Shepard from her own songs. "Read Your Mind" and "100 Tears Away" depend on the simplest, most banal of rhyme schemes and Shepard doesn't have the force of personality to raise them above the pedestrian. Her other song, "Confetti," is a clueless, bitter piece with the singer attempting to declare her superiority over the "skinny little brats walking down Avenue A" with big words like "diaphanous" and "ephemeral." This woman is on every episode.

The only thing worse than Shepard is Kelly's insidious implication that no one banging up against 30 -- a group that includes both the characters on the show and the target audience at home -- can relate to anything except nostalgic R&B, throwback soft rock or cheap rip-offs of both. These songs, most of them sung by Shepard at the end of the show in that same Boston bar, are bland and stodgy as Beantown itself.

"Music From and Inspired by 'King of the Hill'"
Elektra

If you think that Garth Brooks and Shania Twain have taken us to the point where country music and pop are essentially synonymous, then you'll find conspiracy on "Music From and Inspired by 'King of the Hill.'"

Here's the gimmick: Big, dumb country singers, like Faith Hill, Deana Carter and Travis Tritt cover rock songs like Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and George Thorogood's "Move It on Over." (Yep, that last one was written by Hank Williams and country through-and-through, but the version here is a revved-up rocker, and Thorogood guests, too.)

It's hard to read this soundtrack, partly because it's hard to read "King of the Hill." The show began as a family comedy centered around Hank Hill, his wife Peggy, his son Bobby and his niece Luanne. At the start, it was pretty subtle send-up of Texas, strip-mall culture and borderline rednecks. The satire got thicker and thicker, to the point when the Wal-Mart proxy exploded during a Chuck Mangione concert. Sometime after that, the satire faded and "King of the Hill" took to situational humor, like Peggy's failed parachute jump, and neat, almost moralistic plots.

These days, "King of the Hill" is about as funny as the Brooks & Dunn version of Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" -- not very. And sometimes it's even disastrous, like the laughable "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" duet between Willie Nelson and Mark McGrath, the peroxided lunkhead who fronts Sugar Ray.

Bits of dialog from the show pepper the soundtrack, including Hank and his pals standing around the yard sipping beer. Luanne sort of sing-wails "One Tin Soldier." And Hank does a short into and talks his way through Red Sovine's country-schmaltz classic "Teddy Bear." It's one of those talking trucker songs, about a crippled boy who finds buddies on the CB. It's sappy and silly -- once.

Elsewhere, it's onward on behalf of the global domination of country music. The good news? The odds are stacked against the interlopers. The Mavericks, a neocountrypolitan outfit not without talents, overdo "Down on the Corner," which simply doesn't work without John Fogerty's weird vocal blend of conviction and posturing. The Old 97's, a fantastic pop act that sometimes pretends it's a country band, slams through Marty Robbins' "El Paso." They massacre it, sure, but the song doesn't put up much resistance, either. And Deana Carter's completely straight version of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" falls right through the floor. The original take had a great hook, and was made bearable by Petty's lazy, gruff vocals and some pretty serious production work. Carter's version is all sequined Nashville, and just as bland.

You can say one thing about "King of the Hill": The show has a damn great theme song, a one minute little rave-up by the Refreshments that's as joyous as the ringing cowbell at the center of it. Leaving aside "The Simpsons" theme or the one on "That '70s Show," which uses a version of Big Star's "In the Street" reworked by Alex Chilton just for the show, it might be one of the best musical minutes on television. "And now, here's what you really bought the album for," says Hank, just before the end of the record, "our theme song." He's not wrong.

"Touched By an Angel: The Christmas Album"
Epic/550 Music

One night last December, I was caught overnight in the Sea-Tac airport, iced out of San Francisco by a winter blast. I knew I was in for a long night, but I had no idea how bad it would get. Around 8, I caught a glimpse of a TV screen and ducked into a tiny concourse bar. No one was watching. I ordered a triple scotch and tipped the bartender big.

"Excuse me," I asked with my most practiced politesse. "Would you mind changing the channel to 'The Simpsons'?"

"Oh no," she said. "We have our own programs here."

"What do you mean?"

"We don't change the TV. I don't even know what channel that show's on."

"It's on Fox," I said.

"Nope."

I waited for a few minutes for the counter programming. The show was "Touched By an Angel." I tried to leave but the bartender wouldn't let me take my scotch. The episode was about a battered wife, a drug addict, a precious little girl and a staff of orderlies who happened to be angels.

It was the most uncomfortable night of my life. And then I had to sleep under fluorescent lights on the tile floor in front of the ticket counter with three dozen grumbling strangers.

The songs on this Christmas album, by Della Reese, Donna Summer, Amy Grant, Randy Travis and other God-fearing Christians, took me right back to that season of holiday joy.

Next page | "Buffy," "The Simpsons" and "Friends"