Eric's Watching & Listening Post

ERIC's WATCHING & LISTENING POST

MUSIC
(Alphabetical Order)

NEW AGE ARTISTS: (top)

Jean Michel-Jarre is a unique artist. His New Age music is very electronic and soothing while paradoxically invigorating. When I used to write regularly, his album Rendez-Vous was my inspiration. I urge everyone to listen to this album. The final track, "Last Rendez-Vous: Ron's Piece," was composed by Jarre for astronaut Ron McNair and was intended to be the first musical piece played and recorded in space. McNair's historic duty was cut short, however, by the Challenger shuttle disaster of January 1986. It's rather eerie and hauntingly soothing. (Italicized type from the liner notes.)
Kitaro is the only other New Age artist that consistently holds my interest. The oriental influences and sometimes contrived vocals really make you feel part of the music. The album Light of The Spirit is by far his best album.

CLASSICAL ARTISTS: (top)

Johann Sebastian Bach records many wonderful Baroque pieces but my favourite is Toccata and Fugue. Most people know it more commonly as the Haunted House music. It certainly is a fitting piece.
Ludwig Von Beethoven Für Elise has always been a favourite of mine since I heard it used in a video game called Pelaides in the early 1980s. I didn't know what that haunting music was until nearly a decade later when I bought a Don Dorsey CD on which it was recorded.
Aaron Copland Fanfare for the Common Man is one of my favourite pieces of all time. I first heard it at Kennedy Space Center. My friends all insisted it was the Olympic Fanfare by John Williams, but it's not. My friend Maury Wilkinson correctly identified it for me, earning my gratitude.
Don Dorsey records electronic versions of classical artists. While these aren't for the purist I find his albums intensely enjoyable. Mr. Dorsey is best known for Main Street Baroque and Main Street Hoe-down both of which are heard in Walt Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade. (His very cool older out of print stuff is available on the Telarc web site).
Carl Orff's piece Carmina Burana is a work of art. The now clichéd first movement O Fortuna is one of the most stirring vocal pieces ever recorded. It makes you want to get up and be a part of something big.
Pachelbel's Canon in D is a wonderful piece about which I cannot say too much. When writing something depressing, the music makes the words flow off your fingers like water over Niagara Falls.
Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra is famous as the tone poem from 2001: Space Odyssey. You can never listen to it too many times. It's always fresh and full of excitement.

ROCK & POP ARTISTS: (top)

The Beatles are the most successful musical group in recorded history, something that very few people expect will ever be broken. They changed the face of modern music, and defined the very music you listen to now. Almost everything you hear that's been recorded in the past 20 years owes some small debt to the Beatles. Their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been widely acclaimed as the best album ever recorded. It's hard to dispute that after listening to it. It's a work of art.
The Eagles were the first country rock band. Commonly known as Southern-Fried Rock, the band recorded Hotel California and the world will never forget them for that alone. Yet they churned out many hits before they self destructed and swore never to tour together until Hell froze over. In 1997 they returned with the Hell Freezes over Tour and released a kick-ass live album of the same name with some new songs that sounded just like they never stopped.
Elton John is a consistent best seller and a solid recording artist. He has an enormous range of musical styles over his long career and his albums are invariably good (except the horrid Victim of Love disco album). Any of his greatest hits albums are a good introduction.
Tina Turner is an amazing singer because you can tell she feels it as well as sings it. She lived through a hard life and emerged victorious and never lost her sense of spirit. From her old songs "Proud Mary" to her new stadium anthems "The Best" -- she still rocks at 50+ years old with one of the best pair of legs you will ever see.

SHOWTUNES & SOUNDTRACKS: (top)

Les Miserables is one of my favourite plays. It's in the top three. The soundtrack is a work of art. I have it recorded in over ten languages. But for completeness, the Complete Symphonic Recordings is one of the best sounding albums you will ever hear. It's also very moving and stirring. If this play doesn't move you, you're dead.
The Lion King was successful as an animated film - one of the best you will ever see. It became successful again as a play. They both have superb soundtracks. While the songs are mostly the same the sounds are not similar. You should see both and compare them. You will sell yourself both of the soundtracks. This play is in my top three also.
The Phantom of The Opera, by Gaston Leroux, was a wonderful book. The play by Andrew Lloyd Webber is not entirely true to the book, but what a piece he made. Stunning music, beautiful set work, and a gripping story. See it, hear it, feel it. This is, coincidentally the third play in my top three.

COUNTRY ARTISTS: (top)

Jimmy Buffett is the only country artist I really like. He's not real country but rather island country. He recorded his first album A1A while I was still in Key West as a young boy. He had a boat on Stock Island back in the mid and late 70s where he used to play his guitar sometimes. I used to listen. Mother, Mother ocean, after all the years I've found.... I've been there. Only an island person can really understand a song like that.
Eagles. See rock above.

VIDEO
Movies I highly recommend include the following:

Blazing Saddles: This may go down as one of the funniest movies ever put on film. It's one laugh after another and even has a plot. It's not a typical comedy that's all laughs and no plot. While it's certainly not a plot driven film, there is a story that works. And if you spend any time not laughing, it's entirely possible you've died. The scene with the beans is, perhaps, the single funniest scene on film. Mel Brooks will never have his coupe-de-grace topped.
A Clockwork Orange: Very few books appear as a film and are recognizable. Even fewer are very good when that happens. In this case a superb book became a superb film. It remains haunting to this day because everyone who sees it holds the thought in the back of their mind that one day this just could end up being the present instead of the future. A Stanley Kubrick masterpieces.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Steven Spielberg really made an amazing oeuvre with this piece. It combined the subtle and unsubtle into a sweeping picture showing that imagination and belief are not out of place in this world. It took the possibility of life from another world, and brought it home in a way we never thought possible. (I encourage you to get the original and not the special edition he subsequently released.)
Contact: Jodie Foster did not win an Oscar for best actress for this film: that may go down as one of the Acadamey's biggest errors of all time. This film captivated the minds of the country. It brought awareness of the SETI project to the forefront and enabled Seti@Home to become the largest shared computing project in the history of mankind As a film it was touching and realistic while remaining entertaining throughout. True, some didn't like the film because they thought it was too "touchy-feely" but it was so beside the point, what did it matter?
ET: The Extraterrestrial. Some films don't age well and this is one of them. Despite the fact it's very difficult to watch in some spots, it's still amazing. A film like this would never be made today, and that alone shows what's wrong with Hollywood. A film this good transcends being dated, and this one pulls predictably at every emotion and manages to pull it off.
Gone With The Wind: It was horrible book: right out of the romance genre, but as a film it captured the hearts and imagination of the world. If one were to equalize ticket prices to a static amount, Gone With The Wind would still be the highest grossing film of all time.
The Sixth Sense: It's hard to make a film that's new and unique today. People aren't willing to try new things. Everyone wants to see the same movie over and over and over. Invariably the few times people stray from the tried and true formulae, they are disappointed. How else to explain some of the abysmal sequels to grace the screens of the modern multiplex. Sixth Sense was unique, and it was good. People went back to see it over and over again. The first time because they were told to see it, and the second time to try to look for clues to the surprise ending. The film amazed everyone, and it's worth it.
2001: A Space Odyssey. The confusing opening number is visually stunning. Many people don't understand it, but they are still awed by its beauty. The segue from the bone to the space ship is a moment that is stuck inexorably in the mind of everyone who has seen this film. A classical soundtrack set to the beauty of space and with almost no dialogue, and yet it's simply amazing. It remains popular to this day, and though it is old and special effects have progressed exponentially, it remains a work that has seldom been equalled.
Wizards: A Ralph Bakshi animated production. The animation, like most Bakshi productions, was very predictable and ordinary in a slick sort of way. However, the story and concept were very unordinary for an animated picture. It still has the power to move despite its basic simplicity.