Des'ree - I Ain't Movin'


You know what's even better than pointing out the day spa aesthetic of Hilary James? Flying across the Atlantic to hear the crappy British version. Des'ree. 

If there's one thing i know it's that quite often, despite everyone's best efforts, love will not in fact save the day. It didn't work in the 60s, and it's not working now. So, you can see my skepticism surface when she said "guys, i'm gonna take a break from this whole selling millions of albums thing and focus on my true passion, Naturopathy." 

I'm not talking ancient Chinese wisdom, or foot massage, or even the Colonel's secret 7 herbs and spices. I'm talking "we definitely need to rub this holy mud on that gaping flesh wound to draw out the demons." "Rub this magnet over that annoying tumor 9 times a day and you'll be good as new. "It's natural, so it's better than actual medicine." Snake venom is all-natural, want me to drink that? I'm not saying Western Medicine has the best track record with its lobotomies and circumcisions, blood letting and opioid dispenseries, but i am saying that you have a better chance with actual scientific research than you do with anything Gwyneth Paltrow put in a bottle. I also won't criticize the real psychological impact of the placebo effect. If chicken blood and magic pyramids get you back on the active path to recovery, at least there's good eating on a chicken after you leave. 

I have no idea if that's a fair assessment, it's just that as bad as Medicine can be or has been throughout history, any Alternative version is no better or worse than ignoring the problem and waiting to see if it goes away on its own. Tuberculosis and Lupus and The Plague don't spontaneously get better, no matter how much unfiltered goat urine you drink. 

The Allmusic review for her inarguable smash sophomore album I Ain't Movin' is hilarious. "A lot of things about this album are terrible, but it's a totally satisfying listen." Are you high, Tom? We're gonna apply my unpatented, ethically suspicious Bottle-valuation. It's a simple 3 question test: 1) what are you talking about?, ii) why does that matter?, and Triceratops) why should i care? 

Preamble disclaimer: i love You Gotta Be, I like her song from Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Rodolpho and Juniper, i like her voice a lot, but that's never spared anyone before, so here we go. 

1. You gotta do what it takes to keep up. Love will help. Ok, sure, no argument from me. 

2. Life's a crazy maze, so i'm gonna take a train and be homeless and barefoot in the forest. Oh, and don't forget to take along your stash of Spice melange (the withdrawls are a killer). Eh. 

3. Is this one of those God is my boyfriend songs? 

4. Remember that Rob Thomas/Santana jam? Well it's like that but we're whiny entitled garbage. There are people literally starving because of drought. We have to do something. 

5. I think this song is her singing to herself, but it's really confusing. We're gonna have to give this a "what are you talking about?" 

6. Why are you talking the lyrics? Herald the day when babies stop dying. You're gonna be sorry if you don't start stopping being terrible. Viva la revolution! Yeah, strike two, why is this song important? 

7. Don't do drugs, do love instead? It's a natural high. Strike 3, why should i care? 4 more tracks? Do i have to? Fine. 

8. Oh, this is a great song. Yeah, you shouldn't sacrifice yourself. Eyebrows are always older than the beards? That's a dumb lyric, but not without a hilariously coincidental relevance for my own weird stories. I don't disagree that love should win the civil war in your brain, it's just not going to magically happen. 

9. People from the country just don't undersrand how awesome living in terrible cities is. Maybe i'm hearing it wrong, but yeah, no more living in cities for Bottle ever. This song is so bi-polar. No, this song does not need the funny voices. Knock it off. 

10. I had a dream where i dreamed about stuff, and when i woke up i had this song in my head. Nope, another why should i care. 

11. Yay sports team! We won! Love is here! 

12. Take it away, my own title track acapella vocal with remixed percussion ensemble. Worst outro ever. 

Ok, the music is fine. Yeah, you know, if you ignore all the lyrics to everything, most albums are awesome. A few of the songs on this album are great. Legitimately wonderful. The album however is literally "that's rough, but love will fix it." Poverty and famine? Love. Homelessness? Love will fix that too. Self esteem issues? Just love yourself a little more. See? I'm happy. You know why? Love. It's like you guys aren't paying attention. Fine, if you're not going to love each other, I'm gonna go boil rocks instead. 

Is that fair? Maybe not. Is it honest? Absolutely. Des'ree was a fantastic singer. The actual words she sang? Not so much. 

E: Totally learned my lesson, Bottle. Can we be done now?

B: Hell no, two more albums. The next one looks like a real doozy. 

E: [wimper]

Part 6

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Eyrth - Meridian

Image
A terrible sadness accompanies the release of Meridian by Latvian Ambient Metal band EYRTH. Since their debut Fracture in early 2019 the band, and indeed the whole world has suffered a global pandemic, intense ideo-political turmoil, the death of friend and bandmate Igor Golovin, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  The war in Ukraine still wages on, even though we in the Western hemisphere seem to have largely forgotten. These are turbulent times, and Alex and Andrey are rightfully entering an extended break. We may not see or hear new music from them for a while, if ever, and that is completely understandable. The music they've created, however, is truly breathtaking. Self-described as "Uranium wreckage in audio," the music of Eyrth is every bit as hauntingly beautiful as it is brutally crushing. Close your eyes and you'll quickly find yourself in the achingly cold and desolate wasteland of human technological atrophy. Slow, ponderously heavy, at times rabidly ragi
Read more

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Hit & Run Holiday

Image
I noticed today that the strange part of the world who actually knows about My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult has finally accepted that they are in fact "industrial disco." The history of Wax Trax and Chicago industrial music is a subject worthy of an entire library, but MLWTTK is my favorite band to emerge from those humble record store beginnings. They are an unpredictable band for sure, and i definitely don't like all of their albums, but Hit & Run Holiday is an album i think every human being on the planet should hear at least once. This album is simply impossible to describe, because it doesn't actually belong to a musical genre as we understand them. It's actually a movie. I know that sounds weird, but the band is actually a movie. My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult was the name of the movie they were trying to make, but composing the soundtrack led them so far afield that they just shrugged and kept going as a band instead. All of their albums come f
Read more