Tuesday, January 04, 2005
LE SHAT: Today's recommendation is Has Been by William Shatner. You might remember one of my many slogans for this bloggy exercise in ego-gratification was "Whatever you were expecting, this probably isn't it." That phrase applies in spades to William Shatner's album Has-Been, which I finally caught up with over the weekend.
The reviews I've been able to dig up are split between the snarky types who wonder if they're missing the joke and those who, going in with one set of expectations, were blown away by what they found. I tend to lean a bit towards the latter camp, going in expecting nothing since I was only vaguely familiar with his previous Ben Folds collaboration on the Fear of Pop album. Like a lot of people, I'm more familiar with the legendarily awful The Transformed Man, which resonates with both students of pop culture and far too many people who are too cool to care deeply about anything. The latter group that will be the most confused by Has Been, and that's just too bad. This time we get a Shatner who is fully aware of how he looks to the world, knows your expectations and, thanks to the custom-tailored original material, turns them around on you. This time, he means it.
There are a fair share of chuckle-inducing moments. I especially liked the judgement day jollies of "You'll Have Time" (with a gospel chorus singing "You're gonna die!"), when he tells his lady in "Ideal Woman" that "I want you to be you," then in the same breath saying "Spit out the gum, it doesn't work," and going toe-to-toe with Henry Rollins on "I Can't Get Behind That" ("THE COLONEL IS BREAKDANCING! GIVE ME A BREAK!") . Mixed in with the "fun" material, however, are some emotionally packed pieces, not the least of which is "What Have You Done", a bare recitation without music about his wife's drowning death, and "That's Me Trying", a melancholy story about a deadbeat dad trying to reconnect with his adult daughter.
The question lingers, though: Would so many jaws be dropping if this was anybody but William Shatner? Would anybody bat an eye if it was Brent Spiner or George Takei? Well, probably not, but one of the functions of art is to take what you know, or think you know, and help you see it in a new context, and in that aspect, Has Been is an unqualified success.
The reviews I've been able to dig up are split between the snarky types who wonder if they're missing the joke and those who, going in with one set of expectations, were blown away by what they found. I tend to lean a bit towards the latter camp, going in expecting nothing since I was only vaguely familiar with his previous Ben Folds collaboration on the Fear of Pop album. Like a lot of people, I'm more familiar with the legendarily awful The Transformed Man, which resonates with both students of pop culture and far too many people who are too cool to care deeply about anything. The latter group that will be the most confused by Has Been, and that's just too bad. This time we get a Shatner who is fully aware of how he looks to the world, knows your expectations and, thanks to the custom-tailored original material, turns them around on you. This time, he means it.
There are a fair share of chuckle-inducing moments. I especially liked the judgement day jollies of "You'll Have Time" (with a gospel chorus singing "You're gonna die!"), when he tells his lady in "Ideal Woman" that "I want you to be you," then in the same breath saying "Spit out the gum, it doesn't work," and going toe-to-toe with Henry Rollins on "I Can't Get Behind That" ("THE COLONEL IS BREAKDANCING! GIVE ME A BREAK!") . Mixed in with the "fun" material, however, are some emotionally packed pieces, not the least of which is "What Have You Done", a bare recitation without music about his wife's drowning death, and "That's Me Trying", a melancholy story about a deadbeat dad trying to reconnect with his adult daughter.
The question lingers, though: Would so many jaws be dropping if this was anybody but William Shatner? Would anybody bat an eye if it was Brent Spiner or George Takei? Well, probably not, but one of the functions of art is to take what you know, or think you know, and help you see it in a new context, and in that aspect, Has Been is an unqualified success.
|| Eric 9:20 AM#
