The University Daily Kansan Thursday, December 7, 2000
Music
Section B • Page 3
Unified Theory - Unified Theory
The unique sound of Unified Theory may become one of the gems on alternative and modern rock radio.
The band's lead singer, Chris Shinn, has an interesting, mellow voice that carries the songs well, but the guitar play of Brad Smith and Christopher Thorn bring the band's music to a higher level.
Although Unified Theory has been influenced by everyone from Dave Matthews Band to the Red Hot Chillin Peppers, songs such as "The Sun Will Come" and "A.M. Radio" prove that this band is an original.
Unified Theory's creative lyrics make up for what the album lacks in danceability. The fourmember band will perform Wednesday at the Hurricane in Westport in Kansas City, Mo.
Guitar ●●●●●
Danceability ○○○○○
Michael Sudhalter
Robbie Williams Sing When You're Winning
song When You're Winning is pure pop. This latest release from Robbie Williams offers well-crafted tunes that are easy on the ears but not much more. Although his songs don't break new ground musically, Williams has energy and passion that make this album enjoyable.
the best track, "Rock DJ," is reminiscent of George Michael. It's a great dance tune with
unusually thoughtful lyrics, in "Kids," Williams pays homage to his pop heritage by teaming up with Kylie Minogue, an early '80s hit
singer. The song's meaning isn't clear, but Minogue and Williams play off each other so well that it doesn't matter what the song's about.
Williams ventures into darker territory toward the album's end. "By All
Means Necessary" chronicles the life of an opportunistic woman who uses sex to climb the social ladder. The fast track, "The Road to Mandala," is lyrical and poetic, a departure for Williams on this CD. He does it well, demonstrating a versatility that is refreshing.
Sing When You're Winning is for all those die-hard pop lovers who have been disappointed with Eton John's latest efforts. Williams has done a nice job of perpetuating the genre with this new release.
Originality ●●●○○
Instrumentation ●●●○○
Lyrics ●●●●
Melitta George
Cyrus Chestnut & Friends
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Good grief! The time of year is here, and with it comes a new batch of seasonal CD releases. A few years ago, it became fashionable for artists to cut an album of holiday favorites. The result, more often than not, has been a butchering of once-classic songs for a quick buck.
Rarely does a contemporary artist have anything new to offer other than recycled variations on a yulelet theme. Accompiled jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut does not fit into this category.
Those familiar with the television special penned by the late Charles Schulz, are well versed in the accompanying jazz score from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. The underrated Guaraldi, who was best known for his catalog of Peanuts' music, captured the understated essence of Schultz's wry humor and humane vision.
cd reviews
Nowhere is this more true than in his magical compositions for A Charlie Brown Christmas 35 years ago. Original tunes such as "Skating," "Christmas Time is Here" and "Linus and Lucy" join winsome versions of more traditional carols on a soundtrack that
conveyed the spirit of the occasion.
One of many youngsters captivated by the Peanuts' characters and Guaraldi's music, Chestnut set cut to bring this music, albeit in an updated form, to a new
Chestnut does state in the album liner notes
generation of jazz lovers. He enlisted the help of musicians Brian McKnight, Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, Don Allias, Michael Brecker and the Boys Choir of Harlem.
He doesn't help himself by allowing smoother charts and silkier instrumentation in his renditions. And giving Vanessa Williams the lead vocal on the nostalgic "Christmas Time is Here" is simply a mistake.
Nevertheless, the best supporting cast in the world can only do so much with musical material already rendered timeless in its first setting. From the outset, the well-intentioned pianist faces an uphill battle in his re-interpretation of Guaraldi's sentimental music.
"this is not an attempt to recreate what was done ... but a personal musical statement from my heart." While I can certainly empathize with the intimate appreciation of Guaraldi's masterpiece, I do not condone the rather impossible task of producing a more memorable album in the present.
Originality ●○○○○
Originality ●○○○○
Instrumentation ●○○○○
Lyrics NA
Derek John
Christina Aguilera — My Kind of Christmas
Bad music and Christmas go together like heart disease and Santa Claus.
Ho, Ho, Ho.
Enter Christina Aguilera, the hottest pop-Smurfette this side of the Times Square hype machine, with her holiday CD, My Kind of Christmas.
Maybe I'm being a tad cynical. Where's my Visa-spending spirit? After the swearing and tears subside, what's wrong with some ass-shaking carols while decorating the prickly of' white pine with the family?
Executive Puppetear, Ron Farr, starts Aguilera off prominently enough with the opening track,
"Christmas Tree." Baby Boy and Sol. Survior lay down some hip-slinging beats, which Aguilera's voice matches in power and venge. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" never had the baby boomers grinding on the coffee tables like this.
For the rest of the CD, Fair and Aguilera duke it out in Fair's pop (and on monetary) sen-
les like this infectious tune.
ibility, and Aguilara's desire to mimic Mariah Carey (see Rolling Stone, July 6, 2000). Aguilara ends every verse with 10-second vibrato-laden notes, swooping through as many octaves as possible. It's pseudo-gospel, pseudo-R&B and self-aggrandizing vocal maestration.
ing on the Fito-Lay Super Bowl Halftime
Extraganzal
For you pop and dance junks, Fair manages to salvage the last three songs on the 11-song CD. On the ninth track, Aguilera cuts back on her vocal hystics and delivers a vivid rendition of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song — Chestnut Roasting on the Open Fire."
It should be noted that Aguilera's My Kind of Christmas is an enhanced CD. If you pop it into your computer, you might be able to watch a simple, low-budget video of Aguilera singing Tome's Christmas classic around a couple dozen candles.
For the 10th track, "Bassy" Bob Brackmann mixes together a standard dance song titled "Xtina's Xmas." It's blasphemous, cute and clubready.
Aguilera and Tome reteam in the finale with the addition of a drum machine in a more upbeat, "The Christmas Song (Holiday Remix)."
BMG Entertainment plans to release the "Non-Holiday" version in May 2001, guaranteeing the Smurfit commencement ever.
Instrumentation ●●●○○
Lyrics ●●○○
Originality Instrumentation
Ryan Dolan
More information
For audio samples of these bands, go online at www.kansan.com
Live Music
Tonight:
Agency
Holtney, 10 p.m. at The Jazzhaus, 926 1/2
Massachusetts St. $3, 21 and older.
Reverend Horton Heat, Amazing Crowns and
Frantic Flattops, 8 p.m. at the Bottleneck, 737
New Hampshire St. $12, 21 and older.
Julia Peterson, 10 p.m. at Brown Bair Brewing Co., 729 Massachusetts St. $2, 21 and older.
Joe Jackson, 8 p.m. at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
The Confessors with Lee McBee, 9 p.m., at Abe and Jake's Landing, B. E. Sixth St. 21 and older.
Tomorrow:
The Band That Saved the World, 10 p.m. at The Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Massachusetts St. $4, 21 and older.
- The Benders, 9 p.m. at Abe & Jake's Landing, 8
  E, 6th St. 21 and older.
Son Venezuela, 8 p.m. at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. 18 and older.
Saturday:
Sunday:
- Welch's Joose, 10 p.m. at the Jazzhats, 926 1/2
Massachusetts St. $4.21 and older.
Superdrag and the Daybirds, 8 p.m. at the Ballroom in the Kansas Union, Free.
Shaking Tree and the Nada's, 8 p.m. at
Bottlettgen, 737 New Hampshire St. 18 and older.
Nothingface, Endo and Disarray, 6 p.m. at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. $7, 18 and older.
Christmas party with the Jazzahaus Big Band, 8:30 p.m. at Abe & Jake's Landing, 8 E. 6th St. 21 and older.
Mondav:
KU Jazz Ensembles. 10.p.m. at The Jazhaws, 926
1/2 Massachusetts St. $2, 21 and older.
Tuesday:
Paris, TX. The Billions and Transforming Apollo, 8 p.m. at the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St. 18 and older.
P. S.O. 10 p.m. at The Jazzhaus, 926 1/2 Massachusetts St. $3 21 and older.
Wednesday:
New World Gypsies, 10 p.m. at Brown Bear Brewing Co., 729 Massachusetts St. $2, 21 and older.
Gravity Kills, 8 p.m. at the Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire St., 18 and older.
Emmylou Harris puts CD into her own words
By Martha Waggoner Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. — When Emmyloharris started working on the follow-up to the Grammy-winning Wrecking Ball, which veered from her country roots to haunting alternative rock, she decided she needed some new material — her own.
While Wrecking Ball had Harris singing songs by everyone from Neil Young to Jimi Hendrix, for Red Dirt Girl, she ended up writing all but one of the album's 12 songs. The only other time she's written so extensively for a solo recording was on 1985's The Ballad of Sally Rose.
"I made the decision to write, and I think that it was because of Wrecking Ball." Harris said. "I had to raise the stakes a bit.
"To go back into the studio again, I almost didn't have a choice. I couldn't go back in and just do another album of covers. I had to see what I was made of."
The standards for her own songs were high because of the quality of the ones she's chosen to sing from other songwriters in her decadeslong career.
"There's righteous material that I've chosen to cover," Harris, 53, said. "I didn't want to record a song just because I wrote it. It would have to stand on its own."
Harris talked about Red Dirt Girl before a recent concert. Although she was reserved, Harris still sparkled: She was dressed from head to toe in silver and purple — silver toenails and pants, purple top and fingernails, and the famous silvery gray hair.
After the concert, she was almost tongue-tied when she met one of her artistic idols, the eclectic writer Annie Dillard, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. As visitors filed out, Dillard leaned
"To go back into the studio again, I almost didn't have a choice. I couldn't go back in and just do another album of covers. I had to see what I was made of."
Emmylou Harris
toward Harris and they held hands
On Red Dirt Girl, Harris' songs touch on everything from faith ("The Pearl") to an obsessive love affair ("I Don't Want to Talk About It Now") to abortion ("My Baby Needs a Shepherd"). In "Bang the Drum Slowly," a tribute to her father, a Marine fighter pilot who died in 1993, she sings: "But the song of my life will still be sung by the light of the moon you hung."
"Thank you," said Harris, perched on the arm of a ragged loveseat backstage. "Your writing has affected my writing."
singer/songwriter
She weaves poetry, imagery and magic to create songs that are personal, but not specific to her life, with the exception of the tribute to her father.
"The record company didn't have anything to do with that record
Although Wrecking Ball won a Grammy for best Contemporary Folk album in 1996, it was poorly received commercially — it only sold 250,000 copies. Harris has blamed that weak showing on Asylum, her former record company.
Red Dirt Girl, which features Dave Matthews and Bruce Springsteen, was released in September and entered Billboard's pop music chart at No. 54. Harris' highest entrance since 1982, and the country chart at No. 5, her highest entrance since 1981. Her record company, Nonesuch, says the disc has approached total sales of Wrecking Ball in eight weeks.
Yet Harris has never been a consistent chart-topper, perhaps because of her maverick style and refusal to jump on whatever musical band-wagon sells.
except for suggesting that I go as far left as I wanted," said Harris. "After they got it, they didn't know what to do with it."
A thrice-divorced mother of two, she began as a folk singer, then switched to country music under the influence of mentor Gram Parsons, the musical soul mate with whom she recorded two albums before he died in 1973.
After Parsons' death, Harris struck out on her own and from there began a solo career that would bring her several Grammys, and seven gold and four platinum records.
Harris has influenced careers from Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and Rodney Crowell to the Lilith Fair generation of artists — she was even a part of that tour. She continues to promote the work of artists she admires by singing their songs and talking them up during interviews.
David Bither, senior vice president at Nonesuch, part of the Warner Music Group, said the company's target audience for Red Dirt Girl has been "interested and intelligent adults."
Nonesuch was interested in Harris "not only for her history but also because her work has reached a level she's not reached before. As good as she's been, she is now better than ever," he said.
Winners at the 2000 Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on Tuesday
Artist of the year: Destiny's Child.
Male artist of the year: Sisgo.
Female artist of the year: Christina Aguilera.
Duo/group of the year: Destiny's Child.
Album artist of the year: Britney Spears.
Album of the year: No Strings Attached, N' Sync.
Album duo/group of the year: N' Sync.
Hot 100 singles artist of the year: Destiny's Child.
Male hot 100 singles artist of the year: Sisgo.
Female hot 100 singles artist of the year: Faith Hill.
Hot 100 singles duo/group of the year: Destiny's Child.
Artist of the year: Destiny's Child.
Make artist of the year: Signe.
Hot 100 single of the year: "Breathe," Faith Hill.
Hot 100 airplay track of the year: "Breathe," Faith Hill.
Female country artist of the year: Faith Hill.
Country album of the year: *Fly*, Dixie Chicks.
Country duo/group of the year: Dixie Chicks.
Country artist of the year: Dixie Chicks.
Country album artist of the year: Dixie Chicks.
Modern rock track of the year: "Kryptonite." 3
Doors Down.
Hot 100 songwriter of the year: Rob Thomas.
R&B/hip hop artist of the year: Sisqo.
New R&B/hip hop artist of the year: Sisqo.
R&B/hip hop singles artist of the year: Sisqo.
Female R&B/hip hop artist of the year: Toni Braxton.
R&B/hip hop airplay track of the year: "I Wanna Know." Joe
New male artist of the year: Sisgo.
New female artist of the year: Pink.
Rock artist of the year: Creed.
Top 40 artist of the year: N Sync.
Adult top 40 track of the year: "Everything You Want." Vertical Horizon.
New female artist of the year: Pink.
World music artist of the year: Baha Men.
World music album of the year: Who Let the Dogs Out, Baha Men.
Adult top 40 artist of the year: Vertical Horizon.
Latin tracks artist of the year: Son By Four.
Latin track of the year: "A Puro Dolor," Son By
Four.
Rock artist of the year: Creed.
Rock track of the year: "Kryptonite," 3 Doors Down
New duo/group of the year: 3 Doors Down.
New male artist of the year: Sisgo.
Latin pop track of the year: "A Puro Dolor," Son
Bu Four.
Tropical/salsa track of the year: "A Puro Dolor, Son Bv Four.
Biggest one week sales of an album over: 'N Sync,
No Strings Attached.
uggest one week sales of an album over by a female artist: Britney Spears, Oopl! ... I Did It Again.
Century Award for creative achievement: Randy Newman.