Over the next year Terje Fjelde has agreed to listen to nothing but David Foster on his iPod. He’s loaded the thing with over 1,200 songs produced, arranged, composed, and/or played by David Foster. A deal with the devil? He keeps wondering.
It’s time for another Theme Week! I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what’s the theme, though. It should be pretty obvious.
I heard Donna Summer’s “Livin’ In America” (1982), produced by Quincy Jones, for the first time when I watched a documentary about Quincy released around the same time as his album Back On The Block in 1989. He had invited a bunch of hot rappers such as Ice T, Melle Mel, Big Daddy Kane and Kool Moe Dee to join him along with a stellar cast of musicians but, me being a very pale and very Scandinavian teenager, I just didn’t get the rap and hip hop thing at all in 1989. Well, I still don’t for the most part, but that’s another story. Anyway, I was for all purposes hoping for The Dude, Part 2 at the time of its release, and thus Back On the Block turned out to be a huge disappointment. It just didn’t sound smooth enough for me at the time by far, which I guess is kinda telling — and utterly and completely incomprehensible: Have you ever heard “Setembro (Brazilian Wedding Song)” or “The Secret Garden”? Smooth as silk. Or “Tomorrow (Better You, Better Me)” with a very young Tevin Campbell on lead vocals? The only thing with an edge on it is Tevin’s braces.
Still, that’s probably why I remember “Livin’ In America” so well from the soundtrack – it was one of very few tracks with Quincy’s smooth, early 1980s pop sound. I loved what I heard and went straight out and bought Donna Summer from 1982 and I was happy as a hippo for months, playing my new old Donna Summer album all the time whilst everybody else was listening either to the Stone Roses or Roxette. I was so out of touch with anything resembling hipness. Some things never change. (more…)
Depending on who you ask, Janet Jackson may not actually be in need of fixing. Her latest album, 
The album also continues a disturbing trend with Miss Jackson where a real spark of excitement, inspiration or fun is replaced by a demented sexuality feeding off of shock. She may attempt to project empowerment, but all she seems to reveal is that she can’t be anything in her creative world other than some contented plaything or, even worse, a little kid that likes to shout out the dirtiest words she knows because it makes the adults in the room quake. It was that perverse acting-out that ruined The Velvet Rope. The fans rejected it and she attempted some poppier fare afterward. Seems that she’s treading into old, shallow waters once again. The digital workout of famed producer Jermaine Dupri can’t save her from the same old schtick. 