The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 13, 2002, Page 9, Image 9
Missing
clothes
detract
from true
ability
CHARLES TOMLINSON
GAMECOCKMIXEDITOR@HOTMAIL.COM
If there’s one thing music fans
have seen more and more of lately,
it’s skin — especially from female
artists. Britney Spears seems to
be the one it all started with; her
good-girl act must have waned in
interest to drooling males, who
probably wanted her to forgo her
lucrative singing career and be
come a porn star.
Well, maybe Spears wasn’t the
first one; Janet Jackson started as
a reserved rhythm-and-blues
singer in the ’80s, but by the ’90s,
she was posing topless on her al
bum covers, and even naked,
while covering herself with a pil
low.
Now, I know what some guys
are thinking by now: “Hey, you
loser, if they wanna let us See, let
’em show it off!”
OK, image is important in mu
sic in some cases, such as David
Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. And who
would recognize the B-52s with
out Kate Pierson’s beehive or a
similarly big hairdo? But when
artists do something as uncre
ative as wearing skimpy outfits
or none at all, it’s almost like
they’re whoring themselves out
to the masses, specifically the
male masses.
au wuai s me puuu ui uavuig
Playboy? Rolling Stone’s Nov. 14
cover is close enough. Christina
Aguilera is minimally covering
herself with a guitar, which I
doubt she knows how to play,
while she’s wearing nothing but a
pair of stockings and whatever
body jewelry she has.
And she reveals to us her 11
piercings, one of which is in a
place she says most girls wouldn’t
have the guts to get pierced. Two
of her piercings are still in un
known locations.
Wait — she tells of piercings in
places where metal shouldn’t even
go, and she’s still got two more
somewhere else? Well, Ms.
Aguilera, I’m glad you do in fact
have some modesty, even if it is
too little and too late.
The biggest shocker, definitely
more than Aguilera’s getting
“Dirrty,” is LeAnn Rimes’ ap
pearance in the latest issue of
Blender. Blender is the music
magazine by Maxim, the maga
zine for males everywhere who
like their soft-core porn to be in
telligent and funny.
On the cover. Rimes is wear
ing jeans and chaps and nothing
else. She’s standing with her
arms across her chest and her
back mostly facing the camera. I
guess she’s 20 now and she can do
what she wants, but it’s hard to
believe the naive country girl
from the mid-’90s is showing off
her pink bra and more (or less,
when speaking in terms of cloth
With the number of girls cov
ering their chests in Maxim, it
bears a striking resemblance to a
1999 “Saturday Night Live” paro
dy commercial for “Holding Your
Own Boobs Magazine.” Janet
Jackson even got someone else to
hold hers for her in a picture used
for the “Janet” album cover and a
Rolling Stone cover.
Maxim has gotten Shakira to
pose, but she was dressed rela
tively modestly during her photo
shoot. Still, in the interview ac
companying the pictures, the
“Underneath Your Clothes”
singer talked about her satisfac
tion with her own gluteus max
imus and said, “You have to do ev
erything you can to make your
butt stand out.” It always comes
down to sex appeal.
But I am thankful for artists
such as Vanessa Carlton and
Norah Jones — the mainstream
female artists who still have
enough integrity to let their mu
sic speak for itself instead of let
ting their exposed bodies scream
for attention. Thank goodness for
them, although they might be an
endangered species.
Tomlinson is a third-year print
journalism student .'ilis column
appears Wednesdays in The Mix.
THE YEAR IN MUSIC: 199$
Underrated band produces eclectic debut album
“THE BETA BAND”
The Beta Band
BY JUSTIN BAJAN
THE (JAMECOCK
Besides the bagpipes, there
was never any reason to associ
ate Scotland with music — but
then the Beta Band formed.
The Beta Band is composed of
John Maclean on turntables,
samples and piano; Steve Mason
on guitar, vocals and percussion;
Robin Jones playing drums, pi
ano and tape loops; and Richard
Greentree on bass and percus
sion. The quartet met in London
five years ago and have been to
gether ever since.
On its self-titled debut album,
the band manages to cross-polli
nate the sounds of reggae, hip-hop,
folk and acoustic rock into one co
hesive amalgam, rather than into
a confused heap of music.
The album opens with the
playful “The Beta Band Rap.”
The song starts like a cheesy
theme song for a children’s show,
with whistles and barbershop
quartet “la-las,” Then it moves
into an equally trite rap song and
finishes with a romping ’50s-rock
sounding section.
On the jovial “Round the
Bend,” Mason neglects rhyme
and meter and sounds almost
improvisational as he utters
lyrics such as, “I listened to The
Beach Boys just a minute ago;
‘Wild Honey’/It’s not the best al
bum, but its still pretty
good/They’ve got some funny lit
tle love songs on there.”
The production sounds equal
ly improvisational, with random
beat boxing, whistling, a basic
hip-hop drum track, conga sam
ples, live drums and turntable
scratches on “Dance O’er the
Border.” “The Hard One” starts
with a somber piano-and-bass ar
rangement, then breaks down
with Mason singing lines from
Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of
the Heart.”
The Beta Band gradually
gained attention and is even men
tioned in the movie “High
Fidelity.” It toured with
Radiohead and continues to pop
up in magazines as one of the most
talented and underrated bands.
Comments on this story?E-mail
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* »
Jazzy piano stars on Ben Folds Five CD
“THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRA
PHY OF REINHOLD MESSNER”
Ben Folds Five
BY CHARLES TOMLINSON
TUB UAMBCOt'.K
On “Whatever and Ever
Amen,” Ben Folds Five showed
it knew how to make the piano
rock. But the band put the pi
ano back in a traditional role in
jazzy songs and ballads on its fi
nal album, “The Unauthorized
Biography of Reinhold
Messner.”
Instead of giving the keys a
fortissimo pounding, Folds
danced across the ivories.
While on older albums, a wild
eyed song, such as “Song for the
Dumped,” was the norm, the
band sewed “Reinhold
Messner” together with deli
cate compositions, more like
“Brick” or “Selfless, Cold and
Composed.”
“Don’t Change Your Plans,”
a single, was packaged and
ready for the radio — had it
been released in the heyday of
jazz-rock bands such as Blood,
Sweat and Tears. The jazzy
tune’s bridge even features a
flugelhom solo straight out of
a Chicago song.
Darren Jessee’s resounding
bass drum propels “Mess,” a
morose song in which Folds, as
the narrator, laments the de
plorable situation he brought
upon himself. And Jessee
penned “Magic,” in which he
sparingly plays timpani, each
note landing in the perfect
place.
Although the band brought
the piano to a lower dynamic,
it also experimented with
kooky synthesizers on “Your
Redneck Past” and elegant elec
tric piano on “Jane.” And Folds
shows he didn’t forget how to
rock when he pulses the chords
of “Army.”
Folds and company end the
album with “Lullabye,” in
which a grown-up recalls a
childhood flight with his uncle
and James Earl Jones. Even
though Ben Folds Five popu
lated the album with sad bal
lads, it didn’t forget to keep a
balance with songs that were
simply fun.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com
i 111 i M * J ■ H i I
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