To Sing Or Act, That Is The Question

I was surfing today for more women in rock stuff. Then, I happened across this masterpiece. Don Johnson "Heartbeat". To watch this is like watching a train wreck as it catches on fire and then once the fire is out, another flaming train hits it. The song stinks royally, the video must have been a Miami Vice episode they decided not to show but Don said " Whoa, I can make something of this". Funny little tidbit, the guitar player is Dweezil Zappa, Frank Zappa's son. He actually won a Grammy recently for covering his fathers music.

So I started to think, Is there any good songs by actors or actresses?

I think I will ask the public. Can you give some suggestions of any good actor or actress songs. List them, I will pick a winner and you will win no prize, but you get the satisfaction of being held in high regard for the next post.

Women Who Don't Get The Proper Respect

I was sitting around thinking today about women in rock music. It was easy to think about those at the top of the list like Heart, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar. But then I started to wonder about the women in rock who don't get the credit they deserve. So I thought for the rest of the week, I will post about women in rock who just don't get the love they should.

Lets start with Liz Phair. First off, lets get it out of the way, she is gorgeous. OK, now, what i really love about her is probably something someone will criticize her for. This song "Extraordinary" is something she has not represented in the past. Liz has always been deemed the queen of alt rock. Early on she had indie success by trying to stay out of the main stream. Then she came out with an album that had a popish sound on it. Many people killed her for that. But when asked why she did it, she simply stated " I write whatever I want to, and don't care about what you want, it's my music". ( I am paraphrasing). If that's not a rock attitude, turn off your hearing aid and start watching The View.

The song is POWERFUL. She writes about how she is not an ordinary women and if the things she does startles you, too bad. The music has a great semi harmonic feel to it that allows it to be edgy and then still come around to a great hook in the chorus. The video has a great concept to it as well, show a lot of Liz, good formula.

So, she writes what she wants, has a great song writing talent, is a sort of chameleon when it comes to music, and oh yeah, she can rock with the boys and probably harder than some.

Then, why is she not considered one of the top women in rock? Maybe that's what makes her great.

Growing On Me

Well, after a little hiatus, we are back up and running. This week we have a little ditty by Breaking Benjamin called "Sooner Or Later".

Formed in 1998 by vocalist Benjamin Burnley and drummer Jeremy Hummel, Breaking Benjamin quickly garnered a strong local following in their home state of Pennsylvania. The band derived their name from an incident when Burnley was covering a Nirvana song during an open mic night at a club when he dropped the microphone, breaking it. The person who owned the microphone came on stage and said, "Thanks to Benjamin for breaking my mic." In 1999 the band changed its name shortly to Plan 9 then in late 2001, after various line-up changes, the band changed its name back to "Breaking Benjamin"

This is a band that took me some time to get to appreciate. After hearing of them, I listened to a cd and quickly discharged it to the bin of music lost. But then I would hear them on the radio from time to time and they grew on me a little at a time. Now, I find I can enjoy some of their songs, but still they don't really hold my interest as whole.

This song i do enjoy. It is a modern day roller coaster ballad. What's that you might say? Its a song that has many different elements of musical emotion. It has a heavy anger element, then a sorrow filled melody and a light airy breakdown. This is a nice attempt at a ballad like song for them. It has a good sound and good material, dealing with the fact that eventually a relationship will fall apart, so just throw it away.

Good song, not the greatest, but I like to listen to it from time to time and maybe they will grow a little more on me as time goes on.