Elipse: A Piano "Tribute"...

Have you heard Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence? I can't say I recommend it. :(

By the way, I know I just posted an entry, but I guess I'm feeling chatty this morning.

So I recently got in this Evanescence mood (not an unusual occurrence, despite the fact that after a PERFECT first album I wasn't that impressed with their follow-up effort) and I was offered a copy of Eclipse to listen to. I loaded it onto my iPod, and finally got around to listening to it on my way home from work just now.

I was disappointed.

Now, I'm not and Artsy type. I didn't grow up in an academic setting reading ancient tomes for fun and extolling the genius of Mozart. (Amadeus was an over-rated hack, as far as I can tell. I have yet to hear a single piece that moves me. I suspect he composed with his brain, not his spirit. Please feel free to leave all the hatemail you like in my Comments section. I'll post every one of them.) I grew up listening to the radio and watching TV and reading comic books -- like more of you my age than would probably care to admit -- but I'm not merely a spectator. I've acted (community theatre) since I was 11 years old, studied filmmaking since I was 15 or 16, made short "films" (video) since I was 17, edited audio and video since I was 20, (seriously) studied writing (screenplay, novel, short stories) since I was 21, and so I appreciate the craft that goes into creation just as much as I appreciate the creation itself. I honestly get it when a filmmaker loves a movie because of what went into the making of it, despite how the flick might look to a viewer, and when a band digs a particular song because of the process of recording it, despite what their fans may think of the finished product.

From this perspective, I can only perceive Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence as hack.

Perhaps well-intentioned hack. I don't mean to disparage the spirit in which the album may have been recorded at all! I don't know. I don't know any of the artists that contributed or how much they may love and be inspired by Evanescence.

But the product sounds like pretension.

From the very first track, the songs' tempos stagger like the player is just creating the song, off the top of his/her head, right there and then, as he/she plays it.

What the hell is THAT?!!

I mean, I've heard it before. It's the exact type of thing every self-proclaimed "diva" does to the songs they cover from Maria Carey to the current flavor. They can't bring their own creativity to a song, so they just distort the note, stagger the tempo and hit every note their vocal range can manage in as quick a succession as humanly possible. They may feel cool doing it, but it's a headache-inducing mess for the poor listener.

I'm not saying Eclipse is this bad, mind you. It's really not. Compared to what Christina Aguilera can do to a song she's covering, Eclipse is downright respectful of its source material, lol.

But not enough so, is my argument.

I say this because I've heard artists simply cover a song -- without needless embellishment -- and make that song their own.

Ugly Kid Joe covered Hary Chapin's "Cats in the Cradle" to powerful effect, and they didn't change a note! They simply played this mournful Folk song the way they play one of their songs, and the result is powerful! (I'm a rock dude, so if I had to choose, I'd go with Ugly Kid Joe's version. But if Chapin's version is playing, I'm still gonna listen beginning to end because it's a great song!)

Alanis Morissette covered Seal's "Crazy" and blew my socks off! I grew up LOVING Seal's original version!!! I love Seal! The man's music -- not to even mention his angelic voice -- is friggin' BRILLIANT!!! And Alanis didn't do much different at all! I mean, she probably used almost completely different instruments than he did, and her arrangement accommodated the instruments she was using. But that's it. It's Seal's song sung by Morissette. AND IT ROCKS!!! I have both Seal's self-titled debut album and Morissette's Alanis Morissette: The Collection because I loved her version of it SO MUCH! Ask me to choose and I can't. Both versions are dead-brilliant in their own ways.

One more example: Have you heard Disturbed's cover of Genisis' "Land of Confusion"? This dates me, but when I was 16 that song was the rockin'-est song I had ever heard!!! :D I'm not exaggerating, that song blew me away! I could barely contain myself whenever that song came on the radio or MTV! And Genisis is still a viable band, I believe. I mean that a lot of their music could be played over the airwaves today, as though they were a new up-and-coming band, and my daughter might think they were cool. (And my daughter has great taste in music! She's introduced me to many, many amazing bands, such as Panic! At The Disco. This chick knows her music!) (Also, just a note: I think much of the synthesizer stuff would give away the age of the songs, but other than that, great, well-produced music!)

And yet, Disturbed covered it to astounding effect!!! :D

Like in the above illustrations, all they did was do what they do while performing that song, and IT ROCKS!!! They were extremely true to the original material, and yet they managed to own it! In fact, I would argue that what Disturbed did with the song was to infuse it with the exact same degree of intensity that it had back in the late-80s, so that a younger generation -- like my daughter's generation, for instance -- could experience the song the same way my generation did. (Side Note: It's a little creepy, isn't it, how the lyrics of the song seem so much more relevant today than they did back when the song was originally released 23 years ago?)

So it is my argument that if you don't think you necessarily have something to bring to a song -- or album -- just bring yourself and make it your own, and that is more than enough! Had the artists involved with Eclipse simply played the songs from Fallen as Amy Lee and Ben Moody et al. had written them, those artists involved would have been hailed ans geniuses, because the songs are solid! (Particularly these songs, as they had evolved during the course of Evanescence's musical career. You can hear versions of many of the songs on earlier, limited-release albums available from the band before Fallen's release. Great then, better still on Fallen.)

Instead, it seems, the artists involved with Eclipse chose to randomly decelerate and accelerate the pace of songs, deemphasize key sections (which were, obviously, originally emphasized for their emotional impact on the listener) and just generally muck the original material up ever so slightly, so that (one can only speculate) the player or arranger can say "You hear that? That's me. I changed it to sound like that." (The only logical response to which, I imagine, is the girl the guy was trying to impress suddenly remembers she has a dental appointment and has to leave right now. Because you just know it's someone with a penis that mucked this album up.)

Ignoring my above demonstrations of how to cover a song the most effectively, I point to the Vitamin String Quartet -- otherwise known as The String Quartet, as in The String Quartet's Tribute to... -- as the most amazing example of how to cover someone else's music!!! I was first turned onto these cats in the late-90s when I was in a Barnes & Noble browsing their DVDs. (This is before I became intimately involved with Amazon.com, from which I can now purchase the British versions of Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright movies and such! I was paying an arm and a leg for this stuff, and now Amazon often gives me a discount! :D ) I heard this string version of Tori Amos' "Precious Things" that obsessed me! I was forced -- was forced -- to ask one of the B&N employees what was playing and how can I buy it! It was, of course, The String Quartet Tribute to Tori Amos: Precious Things. I bought it on the spot, took it home, and was in heaven for month afterward! (I kid you not! If you haven't heard it, click on the link and sample "Precious Things" and you'll know what so obsessed me!)

Then, after I discovered 3 Doors Down and bought everything they had out at the time (I know, you probably had their albums a year before I did; I'm sometimes slow on the up-take) I happened upon The String Quartet tribute to 3 Doors Down and I snatched that sucka up!!!

Okay, I have to say this: I have heard string music that moved me deeply, profoundly, even. But this was the first time I ever heard string music that rocks!!! :D Holey shnikies! These cats blew me away the same way that 3 Doors Down did... only different, lol.

I mean, if your intent is to add a sense of "class" (an elitist term, if ever I heard one) to the "uncouth" popular forum of Rock music, go the Vitamin String Quartet way! You can play it in the background as all your uppity Socialite friends arrive for your dinner party, and they will be moved by the music! The instruments are socially acceptable for those who consider themselves intellectually superior to the rest of us, but the power of the music is still intact! The Vitamin String Quartet gets what the music is and what it's trying to accomplish, and how to translate that to "more refined" instruments!!! You can hear sometimes major re-working of the arrangement, but it all serves the purpose of preserving the original appeal of the source material. (In most cases, it preserves the original balls of the source material, as well!)

The only people you're going to impress playing Eclipse: A Piano Tribute to Evanescence as your dinner guests arrive are the children of your guests, who are just thankful to hear even a muzak version of something they sort/kinda recognize as music.

But that's assuming you intention in buying Eclipse is to impress others. But you know what? Researching the links for this blog entry, I discovered that The (Vitamin) String Quartet did a tribute to Evanescence! :D I'll bet if you follow the links and just listen to the samples provided, you'll totally hear what I've been going on about for the duration of this blog entry! :) (I wonder if they ever did Yellowcard!!!)

The Vitamin String Quartet RULES!!! lol ;)