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Time Magazine once proclaimed producer David Foster “the true King of Pop”. and it’s true, Foster is among the most commercially successful producers and composers in popular music. there’s no denying the popularity of Foster-produced hits like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”, Earth Wind and Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone”, Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”, Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” and the list goes on and on. but as you can see from his trail of hits, he seems to be fixated on sappy ballads. even Foster’s own solo albums are filled with soft, syrupy ballads. check out Foster’s duet with Olivia Newton-John titled The Best of Me on youtube. wow, now that’s some big 80’s cheeze! and even though he’s got a long list of hit songs and a room full of grammies, that doesn’t necessarily mean Foster’s exempt from flops or from making bad decisions. he’s made a ton of bad choices. come on, his recent stint on reality shows (The Princes of Malibu, Celebrity Duets, Star Tomorrow) weren’t really highlights of his career. and some of the questionable artists he chose to work with in the past include: All-4-One, Color Me Badd, El DeBarge, Night Ranger and oh, remember Voices That Care? i dare you to watch that youtube video without cringing!! …you can’t can you? har, har.

well, here’s another cringe-worthy example. did you know that Foster worked with Paul McCartney in the mid-eighties? yup, they recorded three songs together. one, you may or may not know about, “We Got Married” which appeared on McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt album after some tweaking/overdubbing by Neil Dorfsman. and sadly, the collaboration really didn’t work. the mid-eighties was a “lost period” for McCartney. he bounced around from producer to producer trying desperately to get his muse back and things really didn’t click for him until 1989 when he released the Flowers in the Dirt album. the Foster-McCartney sessions took place in the fall of 1984 at McCartney’s newly built home studio on his farm in Sussex, England. Foster played keyboards during the session while McCartney handled the bass, and electric guitar. Dave Mattacks came in for drums overdubs and David Gilmour was on hand to overdub the lead guitar in the song “We Got Married”.
listen to the 1984 version of “We Got Married”

the other two songs were titled “Lindiana” and “I Love This House”. the track “I Love This House” sounds VERY dated with Foster’s signature mid-eighties synth-bass sound upfront throughout the track. McCartney’s lyrics are totally inane and unispired. “I Love This House” is just utter crap and they both knew it. the track remained in the vaults until the mid-nineties when it surfaced as a B-side.
listen to “I Love This House”

and as for “Lindiana”… well, there’s not much to say. the song has a nice, easy-going melody but McCartney again ruined it with cringe-tastic lyrics. and as producer of the sessions, Foster should have had the balls to tell McCartney that his material sucked and to go back to his room to work on them some more before putting these embarrassing ditties to tape. but apparently, Mr. “Ballad-supreme” Foster wasn’t “man” enough to criticize Mr. “thumbs-aloft” Macca’s crappy songwriting. “Lindiana” remains unreleased. the general music buying public is safe from Lindiana at least for now.
if you’re a glutton for punishment, you can listen to “Lindiana” right here:

and if your ears start bleeding, you can’t say i didn’t warn you…

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David Foster albums are available at amazon.com.

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over the weekend, the wife dragged me out from my comfy chair to do some early christmas shopping. well, early, at least in my eyes. it’s not even thanksgiving yet for goodness sakes. well the local shopping center was already a-buzz with shoppers a-plenty looking to whittle down their holiday shopping list. while weaving through the maze of hostile shoppers in the narrow aisles, all i kept thinking about were various ways to somehow convince the wife to get the bulk of the shopping done online. there are great websites out now that specialize in cool, unique gifts that would be perfect for the holidays. as a matter of fact, vat19.com recently sent me some samples of what they have available on their site.

One was their Ultimate Video Fireplace DVD which is one of their featured products. I also received their insta-snow powder which i actually tried out in front of the kids. they had a blast watching the stuff grow before their eyes with just a little bit of water.

the product i really liked were Smencils: Gourmet Scented Pencils. the pencils are a perfect gift for those that are environmentally-conscious and into being “green”. Smencils are pencils made from recycled newspapers. that’s right, no trees were harmed in producing these pencils. and what’s with the name, you ask? each smencil comes with a special scent. there are 10 different fragrances to choose from. the sample i have is watermelon and the smell reminds me of jolly ranchers hard candies.

Vat19.com is chock full of great gift ideas for this holiday season including neat USB gadgets, a cool Flip Top Cocktail Shaker, unique office gear and specialized DVDs. why settle on giving the same-old, same-old from the local department store when you can give a Vat19 gift that you simply can’t find anywhere else.

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here are some various tidbits coming in about Paul McCartney’s new 3-disc DVD set titled The McCartney Years. my copy is on order and should be arriving shortly. I can’t wait to get my hands on this DVD set.

WARNING: to McCartney fans - some of these are spoiler-ish. if you wanna be surprised while viewing the DVDs, don’t read this!!

- for Goodnight Tonight - there are two versions of music video included. just switch the “viewing angle” to access the different versions. the same can be done for Baby’s Request and Fine Line.

- and just as you all feared, the 70’s and 80’s videos are total mullet-fests! heh.

- yes, it’s confirmed that the videos are shown in “fake” widescreen format. interestingly, the “extra” bonus videos are in full screen format.

- extra goodies playing during some of the DVD menus include: check my machine during the playlist menu on disc 1, rockestra session in the chronology menu (70-78) on disc 1, off the ground footage on playlist menu 1 on disc 2, paul singing outside Leicester square in the Unplugged menu on disc 3 and wanderlust can be found during the chronology menu (83-90) on disc 2.

- overall, the DVD set is a great value and fans should be thrilled to have an official collection like this. true, die-hard fans would have loved a complete version of “Rock Show” and the “unplugged” concert on DVD but as a career spanning sampler, this DVD set works out great.

if you haven’t seen them yet, check out the EPK videos up on youtube to get a taste of what’s on the DVDs.
The McCartney Years EPK Part 1
The McCartney Years EPK Part 2

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“well, hello again. how ya doin’?” a voice appears out of nowhere in the dimly lit parking lot startling a woman in her mid-thirties loading groceries in her minivan.

“ummmm, hi. i’m fine,” she said hoping the man would just go away.

“mmmmm. *fine* is right,” the stranger remarked with a smirk, inching closer to the woman who’s noticeably perturbed about the man being there.

eeewwwww. the woman tries desperately to transfer the grocery bags from the cart to the van as quickly as humanly possible.

luckily a grocery store employee who was in the vicinity rounding up carts saw that the woman was in distress and swung by to wait for her to finish loading her groceries.

seeing that the employee wasn’t going to leave, the creep finally slinks away.

“why do i always attract these creeps every time i go out??” she screams at me after arriving home from the store visibly all frazzled from the incident.

she continues on her rant, “do i have a red target on me? or the kmart special blue light flashing above my head? why do strange men come and try to talk to me when all i want to do is get groceries for my family and get right back home!!!!”

i tried to put a positive spin on it. “obviously it’s because you’re attractive and you can’t help but get men’s attention.”

“then why can’t it be Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp? why is it always quasimodo or some grease monkey from jiffy lube?” she asked as she hands me the milk.

“i don’t know. but shoot. i’d love to get some attention. normally i just get ignored by everyone. i’d have to wave a big red flag wildly in the air to get somebody to look at me,” i said trying to bring the overall volume down.

“that’s why, you’re going to go get the groceries from now on,” she said to me as she places some produce into the refrigerator.

surprised at the new development i stammered back, “h-h-honey, you know i’m terrible at picking out produce!”

“well, you’ll get the hang of it,” she said with finality.

crap.

damn those creepy men hanging out at the grocery store. damn you all.

i better get me some hair gel and a members-only jacket so that i can fit right in.

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if you’re in a working band traveling from gig to gig then you’re probably aware how important first impressions are when you’re on stage. you’ve got to have a certain look, the right equipment and of course impressive material. you normally open your set with a strong number in order to get the folks in the club/bar to take notice. those precious few seconds at the start of your first song is all an audience needs to form an opinion about you and your band. well, the same principal applies off stage. if you pull up to the gig in a beat up ol’ van, the promoter or club owner may take one look and decide not to take you seriously. it’s unfortunate but it’s human nature. that beat up ol’ van is the first thing they see when you arrive at the gig. no need to play or sing for them. the first impression is already made and locked away in their heads. don’t limit your band’s potential by driving around in that ol’ clunker. head on over to Auto Loans Mania today and get yourself approved for an Auto Loan quickly and easily online. once you get the band traveling in style, all those promoters and club owners will take notice. when they see that the band’s got potential, they’ll make sure to book you again for another gig. so be sure to impress them on stage and off. and don’t just do it for me. do it for the band!

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with all the rumors of Arnel Pineda running rampant on the ‘net, i guess we can now definitively say goodbye to the Steve Augeri-era of Journey. I actually like the two Journey albums released with Augeri on lead vocals. but with the lackluster sales figures for both albums, it was obvious Journey had to change their game plan. but hiring a singer from a cover band? i don’t see how that’s going to help their record sales any.

I personally would have went with Todd Rundgren. I heard he’s a lead singer for hire nowadays. sure he doesn’t sound anything like Steve Perry but hell, he doesn’t sound like Ric Ocasek either and Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes of the Cars hired him anyway!

sorry, i got off track here. i guess i’ll do just about anything to post about Todd Rundgren on this blog. heh.

anyway, for your listening pleasure, here’s one of my favorite Steve Augeri/Journey songs titled Better Together. It’s off their 2005 album Generations.

click to listen to Better Together

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well, it’s that time of the year again. the air is colder, the days are shorter and christmas decorations are in full display at your local shopping mall. have you thought about what to get for your wife and kids yet? it’s always difficult coming up with new or unique gifts for the family. i’m personally thinking of taking the whole family on an overseas trip for my gift to them this year. it has been years since we’ve had a real vacation and i recently encountered a site called Holiday Hypermarket that specializes in cheap holidays and bargain vacation packages to destinations all over the world. they’re currently featuring some nice affordable packages to the Mediterranean as well as Amsterdam and Prague. i’m still in the middle of deciding where to take my family but whatever the destination, i’m pretty sure they’ll be pleasantly surprised this coming holiday season.

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Journey and their management have been unusually quiet after sacking Steve Augeri’s successor, Jeff Scott Soto back in June 2007. fans have been in an uproar for the way Journey handled the firing of Soto. many felt that Soto added a great new element to the Journey sound but apparently Neal Schon didn’t feel the same.

well, now it’s early November and there’s word of a new vocalist for the band. his name: Arnel Pineda. Pineda is a singer of a COVER band called the Zoo. and get this, it has been reported that Schon “discovered” Pineda through, you guessed it, youtube!

I’m sure it’d be an opportunity of a lifetime for any vocalist to front a band like Journey but i don’t think anyone in their right mind would be willing to expose themselves to the backlash that’s going to spew from longtime fans once this becomes official.

Journey is currently scheduled to play in Chile this coming February with Pineda so we should be hearing something official pretty soon.

in the meantime, check out Pineda covering Journey’s Faithfully on youtube.

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you know i was pleasantly surprised listening to Carrie Underwood’s new album Carnival Ride. after the huge crossover success of her debut album, Some Hearts, i would have thought the obvious choice for a follow-up for her would be something more pop sounding. but in a bold move, Underwood didn’t choose the easy way out and stayed true to the Nashville sound. i’m personally not a huge country music fan but I appreciate talent and listening to this album, one can easily recognize Underwood’s talent as a vocalist. She’s also stretching out as a songwriter as well, co-writing four songs on the Cd. but her big arena-filling voice is where it’s at and fortunately there are a good number of power ballads to be found on Carnival Ride including a personal favorite of mine titled “I Know You Won’t”. yes it’s melodramatic and the song could have easily gone to cheeze but the tastefully done instrumental arrangements along with her emotional vocal delivery take the simple tune to a whole ‘nother level. Have a listen to hear what i mean…

I Know You Won’t

I know you don’t mean to be mean to me ’cause when you want to
You can make me feel like we belong, we belong
Lately you make me feel all I am is a back-up plan
I’ll say I’m done and then you smile at me
and I’ll forget everything I said
I buy in to those eyes and into your lies..

You say you’ll call, but I know you
You say you’re coming home, but I know you
You say you’ll call, but I know you won’t
You say you’ll call, but I know you won’t

I wish you were where you’re supposed to be, close to me
But here I am just staring at this candle burning out
Still no sound..
No footsteps on my stairs, your voice anywhere..

With the album chock full of stellar tunes, Carnival Ride will probably go on to be as big or even surpass what Underwood’s multi-platinum Some Hearts did in sales. either way, it’s safe to say that Underwood’s here for the long haul.

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