Wednesday, June 23, 1999
The University Daily Kansar
Section B · Page 3
Musicians retread pop music sound
Pop music is often unfairly labeled as simplistic, transient or easily produced.
Three-minute songs with a simple melody and a catchy chorus are a dime a dozen, and anyone could make them — or so this school of thought says. True musicianship comes in more lengthy, complex and challenging compositions that demonstrate a wider range of skill.
This may well be the case, but it doesn't explain why people still hum the songs of the Beatles or Buddy Holly while the easiest place to find the sprawling progrock opuses of the 1970s is the vinyl bin at the Salvation Army.
Simple propagation doesn't guarantee quality — people have been picking their nose for centuries, even before the opposable thumb. If pop music is a guilty pleasure, there are remarkably pleasant nose pickers working in the field.
Randy Newman may be one of the best-known unknowns in modern music. His music permeates popular culture. Newman has worked on countless movie scores and songs, including Ragtime, Parenthood, Toy Story, Pleasantville and A Bug's Life, penning songs like "You've Got a Friend in Me" and "I Love to See You Smile."
Bad Love is Newman's first studio album in 11 years. Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, whr
Commentary
have worked with artists as diverse as Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and Soul Coughing in the past, produced the album.
Chris Eckert
The general sound is not so different from his movie songs.
very much in the spirit of Tom Waits, Tin Pan Alley or Stephen Foster. The content, however, seems to be a purging of bile built up over years of writing songs for cartoons.
tm Dead" is the story of a musician who has been reduced to self-parody and suicidal loathing; "The Great Nations of Europe" is Schoolhouse Rock's evil twin, rattling off the atrocities committed in the name of empire building, "The World Isn't Fair" and "Shame" both deal with the fact that old froggy rich men get the attractive young wives. It's not an album completely devoid of hope, but it's pretty close.
But throughout the despair, the delightful piano melodies and
angelic choruses persevere. Life might be horrible, but that's no excuse for a lack of song structure or anality.
A local example of pop that doesn't deserve to be written off as novelty is embodied by Girls of the Big 12, the latest release from Lawrence band Danger Bob. Citing the Ramones and They Might be Giants as influences, Danger Bob possesses nothing but three chords and 15 songs said Andy Morton, guitarist and songwriter. Danger Bob manages to retain the basic pop formula on their third album, and even progress in many ways.
Certainly, most of the songs cover familiar ground, dealing either with pop culture or "girls we can't (have sex with)," but there are fewer throwaways (as there were on the first album Le Pop Shoppe) and each song has its own identity (unlike several
songs on follow-up *Mega Vega*$).
"Rubber Twice" is '80s hair metal spliced with cheese hip hop. "Ducky's Theme" is acoustic John Hughes musing, and "Lost Er Way" are slower, more thoughtful songs, verging on actual serious love songs.
But far from becoming lovelorn crooners, Danger Bob resurrects old chestnuts like "Church 'Em Danno" as a钻core punk song with Beach Boys harmonies in the chorus, and "Ride My Beam," a song about the sexual proclivities of Disneyworld monorail drivers.
Neither Newman or Danger Bob are anywhere near the frontiers of music. Both are treading familiar, well-worn ground. But sometimes the road more traveled can be perfectly fulfilling.
Eckert is a Towaco, N.J., junior in English
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World team faces Kasparov online
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Thousands of chess enthusiasts took up the gauntlet Tuesday to play world champion Gary Kasparov, responding to his challenge by moving a black pawn through cyberspace.
The online tournament, called "Kasparov vs. the World," pits the reigning champion against a "World Team" of players who vote for their moves on the Internet.
Kasparov opened the tournament Monday in New York, moving his white king's pawn two spaces forward to E4 on a giant board. Microsoft's Gaming Zone, the Web site acting as the host of the tournament, immediately began fielding countermoves from around the world and registered more than 2 million hits for the day, said spokesman Eddie Ranchigida.
The World Team's reply — chosen by 41 percent of those voting — was to move the black pawn in front of the queen's bishop two spaces forward to C-5 — initiating the Sicilian Defense.
Kasparov came to Washington's Union Station to witness the World
Team's move on a 400-square-foot chess board, but declined to make another move in order to maintain the "suspense," said Audrey Waters, Kasparov's spokeswoman. He has 24 hours to respond.
After Kasparov does move, the site's visitors have 24 hours to vote for the next black move. Kasparov will then reply within another 24 hours, and so on, until the conclusion of the match, expected to take most of the summer.
Four young chess experts guide the World Team, suggesting possible moves and tactics against Kasparov. The players then cast their votes on the experts recommendations or choose another move.
After each move, the Web site airs live "chats" on coaches' strategies and options.
Two years ago, Kasparov, regarded by many as the greatest chess player ever, lost to IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. In New York, he said this encounter between chess and technology was a more pleasant event for the human race.
The Kasparov vs. the World web site is http://www.zone.com/Kasparov Home.asp.
Genius grants recognize talented,promising elite
The Associated Press
CHICAGO—A New York lawyer who helps immigrants battle employment discrimination and a Louisiana scientist who helps communities fight polluters were among this year's 32 recipients of MacArthur Foundation genius grants.
"This is an important sign that there is attention being paid to people on the edges of society," said Jennifer Gordon, who will receive $260,000 for her work with the Workplace Project, which she founded on New York's Long Island in 1992.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago has been awarding grants to exceptionally talented and promising individuals since 1981. Recipients get the money for the next five years with no strings attached.
This year, the foundation is giving but $10 million in genius grants. The 1999 recipients were announced Monday.
Dan Socolow, director of the fellows program, said that the grants gave recipients the gift of time and freedom to do what they pleased.
"In some cases people will continue to do what they've been doing, and some take time out," he said.
Gordon, who has left Workplace Project to write and teach, said she was not sure what she would do with the money. Her group helped organize immigrant workers to pass a tough wage-enforcement law in New York.
Wilma Subra's Subra Company has been helping Louisiana residents learn to monitor pollution since 1981.
"When someone is doing environmental work, they're always perceived as an environmental radical," she said. "This gives you credibility."
Subra's company launched a decade-long campaign that ultimately led to the closing of a hazardous waste treatment plant in Louisiana. Today, she is training people who live near a refinery and chemical plant to collect air samples for later examination.
In addition to Subra and Gordon, this year's grant winners included artists, scientists, historians, architects and a mathematician.
Saul Friedlander, a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles, was awarded $375,000 for his research and writing on the Third Reich and the Holocaust. In his book, "Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume One: The Years of Prosecution, 1933-1939," Friedlander focuses primarily on victims, Germans citizens and party activists.
Professors made up nearly half of the list, with the University of California at Berkeley boasting three recipients and the University of Wisconsin in Madison, two.
"I tried to look at the immense total as individual lives and individual fates," said Friedlander, who spent four years hidden in a Catholic monastery during World War II after his parents were sent to Auschwitz and killed.
Friedlander said the money would let him devote more time to the second volume of his book.
Other winners included: Ofelia Zepeda, 45, of Tucson, Ariz., a linguist devoted to preserving Indian languages and culture; Jeffrey R. Weeks, 42, of Canton, N.Y., a mathematician who has helped to interpret the shape of the universe; Juan Martin Maldacena, 30, of Cambridge, Mass., a physicist who works in the abstract field of string theory; and Alison L. Des Forges, 57, of Buffalo, N.Y., a human rights advocate who documents genocide
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