7 Worlds Collide: The Sun Came Out

A while back (2001), Neil Finn (Crowded House) put together a temporary group of friends and associates to record an album and perform a concert for charity. In 2009, he did it again, with some artists returning (Lisa Germano, Sebastian Steinberg, Phil Selway and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead) and some new faces (Jeff Tweedy and members of Wilco, KT Tunstall).

The first project was great, one of my favorite in-concert DVDs. The new project was a little different: the artists invited were encouraged to bring some unfinished song ideas, and in 3 weeks of collaboration, create a double CD and perform the songs in concert.

The behind-the-scenes making-of DVD is fun, but I won't return to it much. It is nice to see the artists arriving with families in tow, and some of the sequences where they help each other flesh out songs is cool. But there aren't many stand-out songs for me. They're all good, but some are subtle in the extreme and it'll take time for me to hear them thoroughly, I think. But "You Never Know" by Wilco jumps out ahead of the pack. If you're tempted to spring for the package, go for the single CD for the best songs.

Classical Music for Kids? (and a cranky rant about CBC Radio)

 

I didn't hear much classical music as a little kid; what I did hear came from Bugs Bunny cartoons and the Captain Kangaroo TV show (I'd swear that's the first time I heard Smetana's "The Moldau" but I could be wrong...) So, what is a collection called "Children's Games" about?  Pieces by Bizet ("Jeux D'Enfant" -- "Children's Games"),  Dukas ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), Tchaikovsky ("The Nutcracker Suite") among others, but I feel they've sold children short. Kids like dark , they like dramatic, they like strange -- let's face it, they're too young to know what 'normal' is, so they like extremes. Remember when the book "Where The Wild Things Are" came out, and parents and teachers (and librarians!) were up in arms about violent, inappropriate content? (Jeez, of course you don't remember -- that was YEARS ago!) So, this is a fine collection for adults, but I wonder if small children would relate to it much.

Side note (sad note) RANT: From the same "Children's Games" CD, I did very much enjoy "The Pied Piper" by Walter Mourant, once played as the theme music for CBC radio's  "Music for a While"... and I mourned once again for the CBC Radio that was unceremoniously dumped for the new format of the last 5 or 6 years -- not only the announcers (wherefore art thou, Jurgen Gothe?) but the sweet theme songs that introduced each and every show. Kicked to the curb so we can now hear Tom Allen and Tom Power repeating their names 25 times an hour and playing third rate Canadian pop music and folk music -- and so many times, the intros (written I assume by some producer) aren't even accurate (or worse, slapped into the wrong songs). Sigh. If you're gonna change the format, is it too much to ask that it will actually be an improvement?