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| Steinman pastiches (was: Stop Forwarding) | |
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fnord 09:57 pm UTC 04/11/12 |
| In reply to: | re: Weird Al's "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me" - John_Galt 08:18 pm UTC 04/04/12 |
| It’s interesting that the Weird Al song was brought up right now. I have been thinking about Steinman pastiches since I’ve run across a few recently, and I was wondering about more. (The background vocals on “Stop Forwarding” were very Steinman. The piano actually reminded me more of Alice Cooper’s Dick Wagner period, but the whole effect was pretty Jim.) The first song that I realized was a Steinman pastiche, a few years ago, was “Montage” from the film “Team America: World Police.” That song is clearly based, at least musically, on “Holding Out For A Hero.” Lyrically they share a heroic theme, but there the similarity ends. On a related note, I’m a little unsure on including the song, “Tonight Is Right For Love” by Chef (Isaac Hayes) with DVDA, featuring Meat Loaf, from the South Park album “Chef Aid.” The song starts as a Motownish R&B song before the second movement, when Meat joins in and the song turns into a hurricane about getting a splinter in your eye. (Meat shows he has a great sense of humor in doing that.) This is really more a parody of Meat’s image and his non-Steinman work, I think, but I’ll let you judge for yourself. The recent song that made me think about all this in any depth is called “Midnight Madness.” It is the one original song on a cheap RHPS “tribute” CD that I got for a buck in a discount store. The CD features most of the tracks from RHPS plus covers of semi-related songs and spooky or sexy hits people might know. It was recorded and released by the Drew’s Famous label, which I think is a company that just makes cheap recordings to cash in on gullible buyers or completist collectors. (Actually, looking at Drew’s Entertainment’s website, the company presents itself as being a source for inexpensive licensing of popular songs—the studio musicians record sound-alike versions of the songs and you pay much less to use that version than the original in your TV show, movie, bar mitzvah, whatever.) At any rate, this song, “Midnight Madness,” is about partying in the middle of the night. Musically, it sounds like the slutty, younger sister of “Paradise By The Dashboard Light.” (Sluttier than “Paradise?” It’s a metaphor.) The songwriter clearly tried to write a song that sounded like “Paradise,” but not so much like it he could be sued. Kind of like Dianne Warren. One more example that I discovered recently, though it too is borderline on whether it belongs on this list. The track “John Galt’s Theme” from the soundtrack to the film “Atlas Shrugged Part One” is not really a pastiche as such. (It’s also about a character in the movie, not about our board user John Galt.) However, the motif of the piece is very reminiscent of the piano introduction to “The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be.” It is not exactly the same; I would never accuse composer Elia Cmiral of being the same kind of sneak as, say, Baron Andrew. However, I do think there is an irony in the similarity—after all the film is about how the future ain’t what it used to be. And, to be sure, “Future’s” motif was Steinman recycling his own music from “More Than You Deserve.” Is it not equally ironic that the film “Atlas Shrugged” is just as much about how the value of one’s labor is more than some people deserve? Maybe our Mr. Galt will have something to say about that. | |
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| Previous: | re: Weird Al's "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me" - John_Galt 08:18 pm UTC 04/04/12 |
| Next: | Steinman's Genius! - steinmaniac1 04:20 pm UTC 03/31/12 |
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