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Top 5 Fiver comments that sound awesome when taken out of context

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

It’s been a busy week at theFiver’s home offices, as such, we didn’t have time to cobble a traditional Top 5 list, however, in the interests in saluting our most excellent readers, we’d like to present the Top 5 Fiver comments that sound awesome when taken out of context:

1. No matter what you tell them, there are legions of people that will never accept that Manfred Mann is not “wrapped up like a douche…”

2. Please feel free to vomit forth your opinion on my blog anytime… well, not literally, please…

3. side note: I still believe the chinaman may, in fact, be the issue.

4. But guitar strings feel gross on my fingers. And Guitar Hero is so easy. And there’s an audience cheering you on. And pretty colors.

5. I think this needs an Aimee Mann song. That’s what was playing when I hit into the moose going 60 mph at approximately 10 pm that fateful Friday night five years ago.

Runners up: They’re saying “Shark sandwich,” right? and Who *doesn’t* need a lizard friend?

Posted in Top 5 | 2 Responses »

D-composing: Top 5 songs where Canon in D rears its head

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

When 17th Century Baroque composer Johann Pachelbel died, he cursed the descendants of his jailers with his last words: “Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I’ll be back.”

No, wait, those were the last words of Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters 2. I don’t know what Pachelbel’s last words were. Probably something like “Nuremberg Wild Cats rule!” or “Organists do it with their hands and feet!” Maybe it was, “If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it!”

Canon in D’s influence in popular music is sometimes felt directly; sometimes it’s hinted at during a chord progression. Recently, I was paling around with my good friends Carla and Andrew. I was playing “Hook” on guitar when, with the aid of a change in time signature, tempo, and good ol’ fashioned Fleischman’s Whiskey, I wound up playing “Cryin’.” Carla and I wondered just who thought of this chord progression first, when Andrew mentioned both progressions seemed based on Taco Bell.

“Taco Bell?” I asked, suddenly craving nachos (remember, whiskey was involved).

“No, Pachelbel. Now start blogging, Dexter.”

Top 5 songs where Canon in D rears its head (but first, a special message on Taco Bell Pachelbel from theFiver):

1. “Hook,” Blues Traveler
2. “Cryin’,” Aerosmith
3. “Piano Man,” Billy Joel
4. “Basket Case,” Green Day
5. “Fullness of Wind (Variation on Canon in D),” Brian Eno

Canon in D Variations

Runners Up: “All Together Now,” The Farm; ” “I’ll C U When U Get There,” Coolio.

Posted in Top 5 | 5 Responses »
Tags: Aerosmith, Billy Joel, Blues Traveler, Brian Eno, Coolio, Green Day, Johann Pachelbel, The Farm

Top 5 underrated rock musicians

Monday, September 28th, 2009

……

When I thought about doing a Top 5 list of underrated rock musicians, I quickly realized that this could easily become a Top 100 list. I’m sure we’ll see a reoccurrence of this category, but for today’s post, I’m listing the Top 5 my mind keeps coming back to.

1. Roger Taylor
Queen is a band of giants – gigantic talent, gigantic stage presence. So it can be hard to stand out against the larger-than-life Freddie Mercury or guitar-god Brian May. But listen to any one of Queen’s numerous live recordings, and Taylor’s presence is essential where his raspy harmonies are as constant as his high hat/snare combos. When Taylor and May toured as part of Queen + Paul Rodgers, Taylor got to step out from behind the kit to sing lead on such immortal numbers as his own “Radio Ga-Ga.” Speaking of which …

2. Paul Rodgers
Rodgers‘ ubiquitous presence on classic rock radio as part of Bad Company means that he’s synonymous with ’70s standards such as “Can’t Get Enough” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Look beyond the El Camino-rock, though, and you’ll find an artist who has had an enormous influence on early blues-rock (think Free’s “All Right Now”) and a singer with a power voice with an impressive range.

3. Extreme
The Boston quartet’s 1989 debut seemed heavily influenced by Van Halen and and hair spray. But underneath all that Aquanet was a band with killer chops (lead by Nuno Bettencourt’s blazing guitar) and harmonies as formidable in the studio as on stage. Extreme’s sound would later encompasse elements of folk, funk, blues, and even the symphonic, but all with a hard-rocking edge, and would run the lyrical gauntlet that took them away from sexploitation tunes like “Teacher’s Pet” and “Li’l Jack Horny” towards introspection and religious and social commentary.

4. Screaming Trees
Screaming Trees deserve more than to just be a foot note in the decapitated history of the Seattle grunge scene. The band never became as legendary, but their sound evokes the best of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam – earnest and sorrowful without any pretension.

5. Alex Lifeson
Nothing sent me into a white-hot rage faster than when I saw Rolling Stone excluded Lifeson from its list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. I immediately set about collecting as much dog waste and lighter fluid I could find. My goal was to have at least 400 pounds of canine feces in paper bags that I would set alight in the lobby of the magazine’s New York offices. It would be up to Jann S. Wenner to stamp out said flaming bags, as required by his role as editor and publisher, and whoa, would he get a surprise!

Ultimately, the logistics involved with getting that much dog crap into Manhattan proved too much. Chances are the editorial department would be too preoccupied with fact-checking stories on Diablo Cody and with its Megan Fox photo shoot to notice several hundred pounds of burning dog feces in its foyer.

So, to summarize, Alex Lifeson rocks.

underrated

Posted in Top 5 | 4 Responses »
Tags: Alex Lifeson, Bad Company, Brian May, Extreme, Free, Paul Rodgers, Queen, Queen + Paul Rodgers, Roger Taylor, Rush, Screaming Trees

Top 5 failed experiments merging pop and hip-hop

Friday, September 25th, 2009

The Beastie Boys and Run-DMC were always on a Quixotic task of exposing the so-called “suckah emcee.” Perhaps their charge was inspired by some of these Top 5 failed experiments merging pop and hip-hop:

1. “Come With Me,” Puff Daddy
To actually give Senior Diddy credit for this song is ludicrous, despite Jimmy Page’s complacence. “Come With Me” simply reworks the instrumental tracks of Led Zepplin’s “Kashmir” as Puffy coughs “uh, uh-huh, yeah” repeatedly between sets of nonsensical lyrics. It was fittingly released on the horrible 1998 American remake of Godzilla, another pop culture giant that destroys all in its path.

Come With Me (feat. Jimmy Page) (live) – Puff Daddy

2. “Do the Bartman,” Bart Simpson
Around the time of The Simpsons’ second season, a huge effort was made to capitalize on the show’s popularity with all manner of merchandise – the one and only Bart leading the charge. Animated or not, and Michael Jackson notwithstanding, you don’t give a yellow suburban fourth grader a mic. Thankfully, both the show and Bart himself not only survived this onslaught of fame but flourished.

Do The Bartman – The Simpsons

3. “Roll The Bones,” Rush
Canadians are great at a lot of things. Their hockey players are legendary, their maple syrup and bacon products are far above par, and their Terrence & Philip cartoons are a delight. But our neighbors to the north ought to be steered a way from attempting to rap. Their own Rush injected a number of rhymes in 1990’s title track to Roll the Bones, with such memorable lines as “Let’s kick some gluteus max” and “The night has a thousand saxophones.”

Rush |MTV Music

(Say what you want, the world would be a better place if all our music videos included rapping skeletons. Yes, I know all the words to this song by heart. No, I will not apologize.)

4. “Radio Song,” R.E.M. feat. KRS-One
It’s depressing to think that the worst part of “Radio Song” is its defining element – the bellows and shouts of hip-hop legend KRS-One. A song with excellent potential that fails in its task to be everything to everyone. Indeed, the DJ sucks.

R.E.M. |MTV Music

5. “Rapture,” Blondie
Kudos for Blondie for experimenting in what was largely unknown territory in 1981. Now, about this “eating cars” thing? In retrospect, Debbie Harry sounds pretty silly as she attempts to rap, but the chart-topping success of “Rapture” brought an untried art form a step closer to the masses.

Blondie |MTV Music

Posted in Hate Week, Top 5 | 1 Response »
Tags: Bart Simpson, Blondie, Debbie Harry, Jimmy Page, KRS-One, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, P. Diddy, Puff Daddy, R.E.M., Rush

Special guest post – Top 5 mistakes in pop music recordings

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Hate week is where we share and even celebrate our frustrations at music and its mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes can make you want to slam your head against a wall, but sometimes those mistakes can enrich the listening experience. In today’s guest post, you’ll find both. Thanks to thank my friend Kelly Muse for contributing the following – the man’s a friend, one hell of a good musician and, as you can see, no slouch in the writing department.

In the early days of analog recording, it was important to get a good take. Tape cost money, and editing clips together could be painfully slow. As technology progressed this got easier. Now any boob can throw together a digital recording on their computer and copy/paste it to perfection.

Why, then, a modern recording would have blatant mistakes on it is beyond me. The examples on this list exist for different reasons, and I’ll do my best to deconstruct their origins.

1. “You’re Beautiful,” James Blunt

When I was in Ecuador I went on a long bus ride, and for some reason the driver had this song running on a continuous loop. Every time the beginning of this song came around, I thought it was skipping. Why did he come in early with “My life is brilliant”? And why was it left in the song? This one gets the top spot because I have no idea what they were thinking.

Weird Al parodied this mistake brilliantly in “You’re PItiful”, but Blunt denied him permission to release it, so he put it online.

2. “Head Over Feet,” Alanis Morissette

Setting aside that the expression is “head over heels,” not feet, one could still make the case that this whole song is a mistake. The big gaff comes when Alanis does something she should probably never do – she plays the harmonica.

A quick lesson on harmonicas: they come in two flavors, diatonic and chromatic. The diatonic ones only play the notes in a certain key, so anyone can blow in and out to their heart’s content and it will sound great … as long as the chords stay in the key.

Unfortunately for Alanis, the chords of her song move away from the key and her harmonica solo sounds more and more like it’s being played by a toddler. Maybe she surrounds herself with sycophantic yes men, but a good producer would have put a stop on this train wreck.

3. “Believe,” Cher

This one may not actually contain a mistake, but I’m including it anyway because this is the first song I remember hearing that had that digital voice sound. “That digital voice sound” is actually a computerized auto-tuner; a plugin that corrects singers’ pitches. You can adjust the settings to tell it how long a note needs to stay off pitch before it is corrected, or how gradual the correction should be. If you go too far with some of the settings, it makes that digital sound.

My guess is that the engineers were fixing Cher’s singing in the studio, overdid it with the settings, and decided it sounded kind of cool.

4. “Vertigo,” U2

“Uno … dos … tres … catorce!” Catorce? 1,2,3, 14? I don’t think any of the lyrics to this song make any sense, but the opening line is baffling. In fairness, it does adhere to Bono’s law: Everything Bono does is correct.

5. “Steven’s Last Night in Town,” Ben Folds Five

For the record, I am a big fan of mistakes. As a jazz musician, most of what I do revolves around spontaneity and serendipity. I believe that an imperfect performance is more human and often more emotional than one executed with clinical perfection. The album Whatever and Ever Amen was recorded in Ben’s house, and is riddled with imperfections that only seem to add to its genius. My favorite happy accident is in “Steven’s Last Night in Town.” At 2:54 when the band breaks, you can hear the phone ring. It sounds like it belongs, which is the mark of a really good mistake.

Top 5 mistakes

Posted in Hate Week, Top 5 | 3 Responses »
Tags: Alanis Morissette, Ben Folds Five, Cher, James Blunt, U2

Hate Week: Top 5 endlessly repetitive songs of the 1990s

Monday, September 21st, 2009

To paraphrase the musical “Avenue Q,” the more you love someone, the more you want to kill them. The same can be said of art – specifically music. When you’re passionate about something this complex and varied, you discover that every bit of elation is offset by a degree of frustration. Hey, it’s all part of the same ball of wax, so we’re dedicating this week to all the frustrations, annoyances and venom that helps fertilize our love for music.

One of the traps inherent in popular music is its reliance on simple formulas (usually 4/4 time and, if it’s rock, probably in E or E minor – invariably tuned down a half step if you’re in Guns ‘n Roses) that allows listeners to walk an emotional tightrope offset by a 1-5-4 safety net. For better or for worse, an audience is more likely to feel safer experiencing heroin addiction through the same three or four chords the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Roses” than with “Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1.”

But even a good artist can wear out the welcome mat and with it, the listener’s patience. And ‘lo the ’90s! The grand era when a producer could rest his Jack Daniels on the sampler’s “repeat” button for four minutes and call it a day! What a better way to kick off Hate Week at theFiver than with the:

1. “Baby, Baby,” Amy Grant (1991)
This infinitely peppy hit that signaled Grant’s crossover from gospel to mainstream pop in the early ’90s was inspired by Grant’s then-newborn daughter. It’s also responsible for the suicides of countless studio and touring keyboardists, thanks to its never-ending riff.

2. “Two Princes,” Spin Doctors (1992)
I’ll say it – yeah, I liked the Spin Doctors. Still do. Wanna make somethin’ of it? Think your post-Grateful Dead pot smokin’ hippie band’s better than mine? Well, pass that joint and we’ll settle this over a game of hacky-sack. Still, I’m a bit bummed that better songs such as “Cleopatara’s Cat,” and “How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)” are overshadowed by the mind-numbing effects of “Two Princes.”

3. “The Rockafella Skank,” Fatboy Slim (1998)
Ever wonder what would happen if you took a sleep-deprived British DJ loaded on X and Jägerbombs and gave him his own copy of Pro Tools? Norman Cook, aka, Fatboy Slim, doesn’t need to guess.

4. “Bittersweet Symphony,” The Verve (1997)
This song has gone through a myriad of legal twist and turns as its main riff is an endless sampling of the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 song “The Last Time.” This is an example of how music truly belongs to the listener, to the people. For art forever resides in the human heart and spirit – its true home – not in the ledgers and records of music company executives.

OK, you can stop laughing.

The Stones were eventually able to snag the song’s royalties, and the song has since been featured in advertisements for sneakers and cars, enabling Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to once again wipe their wrinkled behinds with hundred dollar bills. On a personal note, I’d like to say that both of my copies of “Bittersweet Symphony” came as gifts in the form of two separate mix CDs I got from two different friends on the same day, so I’ve never paid for the song. So, to Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards, take note: IOU 1 back rub.

5. “Hero,” Mariah Carey (1993)
Why do I pick on Mariah so much? I’ll tell you why: MTV’s Cribs. Watch her tour of her penthouse and you’ll understand how far down our seething jealously goes. And also, in spite of her formidable vocal range, she’s not very good. Case in point, “Hero,” an awful, cloying and terribly repetitive ballad with a rhyming scheme and melody that would make one tear away the cochlear implants of the deaf if only to spare them any chance of having to hear this song. Congratulations, Mariah, why don’t you come on stage and – Kanye, NO!

“Yo, I’m gonna let you finish, but first I gotta say that Lenny Kravitz had the most repetitive songs of any artist in the ’90s!”

Wow, uh, actually, Kanye, you’ve got a good point. Perhaps no other artist of the 1990s better exemplified regurgating the same damn chords throughout a song with barely a change throughout. Thanks, for pointing that out, Kanye.

“You’re damn skippy.”

Indeed. I am, in fact, damn skippy.

Kayne’s Choice Award for Most Repetitive Artist of the 1990s: Lenny Kravitz.

From 1993’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” to his cover of “American Woman” in 1999, Kravitz proved that you can, in fact, be born of a celebrity and still release endlessly repetitve music under the guise of being retro. There is no better example than his ultimate lather-rinse-repeat monstrosity “Fly Away” (1998). Good on ya, Lenny. Your little gold statue is in the mail.

Vote No on 1 | Protect Maine Equality
RepeatrepeatRepeatrepeatRepeatrepeat

Posted in Hate Week, Top 5 | 3 Responses »
Tags: Amy Grant, Fatboy Slim, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Spin Doctors, The Verve

Steady as a goat we’re flying over trout : Top 5 lesser-known misheard lyrics

Friday, September 18th, 2009

I’d like to thank Andrew Thomas for contributing today’s most excellent entry. Check out Andrew’s original music here. — JS

We’ve all had those moments where we hear a song on our car radio and have to stop what we’re doing, think “Did he just say ‘Burrito Supreme‘?”, then apologize to the line of drivers in crushed cars yelling at us for some reason. Or, maybe it’s just me.

Regardless, the misheard lyric is a timeless tradition in popular music, from Jimi Hendrix’s “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” to Elton John’s “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” All of us have heard some variation on these classics. Today on the Fiver, we explore some of the lesser known corners of misheard lyricdom.

1. “The Milkshake Song,” Angry Salad

Actual: “She gave me a milkshake and a kiss”
Misheard: “She gave me a milkshake etiquitte”

The idea of Milkshake Etiquitte was first advanced by Emily Post, in her seminal 1899 manual “Of Dairy Drinks and Their Consumption: A Primer for Proper Ladies.” Today, this upper-class tradition is reflected in Daniel Day-Lewis’s generous offer to drink your milkshake. Sadly, this was not what the boys of Angry Salad were referring to in this song.

2. “Bullet With Butterfly Wings, “Smashing Pumpkins”

Actual: “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage”
Misheard: “The spider Marines, Siam’s steel-chested rabbit arcade”

I first came across this gem in a page-a-day calendar of misheard lyrics. I was hooked within the first 3 words. It’s a science fiction movie that writes itself – we follow the lives of giant anthropomorphic spiders as they enlist in the military, travel to Thailand, and play bizarre video games involving armored rabbits. Michael Bay, get on this STAT.

3. “Hold Me Now,” Thompson Twins

Actual: “Oh, my cold and tired heart”
Misheard: “Oh, my cold Italian heart”

The only acceptable reason to listen to this song is so you can intentionally mis-hear this line. Too bad it’s toward the end of the song.

4. “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana

Actual: “An albino, a mosquito”
Misheard: “You’re a wino on a Ski-Doo”

Kurt Cobain’s enunciation was never all that great (“Weird Al” Yankovic famously lampooned it in “Smells Like Nirvana”), but this is one of the the few instances where the actual and misheard lyrics make equally as much sense.

5. “Whatever I Fear,” Toad the Wet Sprocket

Actual: “You eat my kind for breakfast”
Misheard: “You eat my cat for breakfast”

Glen Phillips, lead singer and head songwriter of Toad, originally wrote this song as a tribute to everyone’s favorite ’80s sitcom alien puppet, Alf. The only surviving lyric from this original version was a line about eating cats, which Phillips and his bandmates quickly re-wrote into its final form. If you listen closely, though, you can still hear Glen lapse into singing “You eat my cat” a few times. True story.

alftoad

As an extra special bonus, I want to include what I feel is the ultimate in misheard lyrics, from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, “Pod People.” There’s absolutely no way I can do this justice in words, so I’ll let the song in its entirety do the talking.

Misunderheard

Posted in Top 5 | 5 Responses »
Tags: Angry Salad, Elton John, Glen Phillips, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Thompson Twins, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tony Danza

Top 5 songs for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Oh yeah, it’s coming. We all knew that eventually the dead would rise from their graves to shuffle awkwardly about in search of human brains, or as the zombies prefer to call it, “brrrraaaaaaiiiins.”

All the signs were there: The bottomless Resident Evil series, a crappy sequel to “28 Days Later,” Jane Austen, Woody Harrelson … The zombies are coming, make no bones about it. Make sure your iPod is properly cued when they do.

Top 5 songs for the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

1. “Re: Your Brains,” Jonathan Coulton

You always knew that your coworkers were zombies. Now finally, the cards are on the table. All they very reasonably want is to simply gnaw on your grey matter.

2. “Don’t Stop Me Now,” Queen

While the eponymous character and his friends in “Shaun of the Dead” need to bring the pain, they bring the Queen … somewhat accidently.

3. “Sleepwalker,” Jim’s Big Ego

Jim Infantino describes the life of a real-life zombie in everything but name.

4. “Zombie,” The Cranberries

I like to think of this song as being song by a zombie, which accounts for the shrieking and gutturals of The Cranberries’ singer Dolores O’Riordan.

5. “Le Moribond,” Jacques Brel

Known in English as “Seasons In The Sun,” made famous in English by artists like The Kingston Trio and Terry Jacks, and made good by Nirvana. Think back fondly to the world that was, for it is now overcome by hungry, hungry zombies.

Posted in Top 5 | 1 Response »
Tags: Jacques Brel, Jim's Big Ego, Jonathan Coulton, Nirvana, Queen, Terry Jacks, The Cranberries, The Kingston Trio

Distant ships on the horizon: Top 5 versions of of ‘Comfortably Numb’

Monday, September 14th, 2009

What is it about Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb that makes it such a favorite 30 years after it was released on “The Wall”? The song is dark and paced without ever feeling like it’s plodding. It’s like the un-Eagles, which makes it a friend to me. It’s also theatrical without feeling overblown. And Gilmore’s guitar solos made me want a Stratocaster more than anything Eric Clapton has done.

The great sage Wikipedia tells us: “According to Rolling Stone the lyrics came from Roger Waters’ experience when he was injected with tranquillizers for stomach cramps by a doctor prior to playing a Pink Floyd show in Philadelphia on the band’s 1977 tour for the Animals album. ‘That was the longest two hours of my life,’ Waters said. ‘Trying to do a show when you can hardly lift your arm.’ The experience gave him the idea which became the lyrics to this song.”

When I complied the list for Top 5 list of gangster film songs earlier in the week, I had to include the live version by Roger Waters, Van Morrison and The Band, my personal favorite. It made me want to discover the other …

Top 5 versions of “Comfortably Numb”

1. Dar Williams with Annie DiFranco
Perhaps the most successful of the low-key (a relative term) versions of “Comfortably Numb.” Williams strips away the strings and lets some electric slide guitar and some formidable vocals do the heavy lifting. The interplay between Williams and DiFranco gives me chills.

2. The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis
Progressive jazz combo The Bad Plus is known for turning pop standards on its ear, and they do it again on their take of “Comfortably Numb.” The Bad Plus incorporates the truly haunting vocals of Wendy Lewis with harmonies by bassist Reid Anderson. The result: Verses that are so darkly intimate, they turn the bridge/chorus crescendoes into the aural equivalent of tossing a bucket of cold water onto a drunk.

Comfortably Numb – The Bad Plus

3. Dream Theater & Queensryche
I’m just as surprised as you are. Or maybe I shouldn’t be, because there’s definitely a larger-than-life aspect to The Wall. It may be overkill, but the two bands do a nearly note-for-note rendition that somehow doesn’t feel warmed over or, for that matter, over done.

4. David Gilmore and David Bowie (Live at Royal Albert Hall)
This version clings closely to the original with one major exception: Bowie’s inflections, far from using Waters’ clinical voice, seems near-breaking, making the doctor’s role more akin to mad scientist, giving the song an unnerving and, arguably, a more dangerous feel.

5. Pink Floyd – Live 8
Roger Waters rejoined with the rest of the members of Pink Floyd to participate in Live 8 in what for many was the highlight of the London portion. Given the serious nature of the song, and the deadly serious business of wiping out poverty, it’s a wonderful contrast to see how much the band and the audience are enjoying the moment.

Runner Up: Staind, with a cool, stripped down version.

Comfortably Numb (Live at Hiro Ballroom) – Staind

Comfortably dumb: Tool; Luther Wright & The Wrongs; Arturo; Scissor Sisters (may have to suffer the eternal burning of the fires of hell for this sins of injecting a great song with strains of Stayin’ Alive)

Just plain confusing: Gregorian Chant — The verse for this song was never meant to be performed by monks, and overall, this feels overproduced – Yanni-ized as it were. But I venture to say that there are parts where it sounds very pretty, such as the use of violin in place of guitar between a good attempt at the first chorus and second verse.

Comfortably Numb – Gregorian Chant

Posted in Top 5 | 2 Responses »
Tags: Ani DiFranco, Arturo, Bee Gees, Dar Williams, David Bowie, David Gilmore, Dream Theater, Eric Clapton, Gregorian Chant, Luther Wright & The Wrongs, Pink Floyd, Queensryche, Roger Waters, Scissor Sisters, Staind, The Bad Plus, The Band, Tool, Van Morrison

Acting! Top 5 notable occurrences when musicians became actors

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Every once in a while, a performer hangs up the mic and goes Hollywood. The results can be brilliant, entertaining, disastrous or just downright stupefying.

1. Elvis Presley
One of the greatest tragedies over the loss of Elvis wasn’t merely that the Fried Peanut Butter, Honey, Banana and Bacon Sandwich Society lost its key spokesman. It’s that Elvis could have had a critically successful acting career, instead of just a lucrative one. The King had a promising start in films such as Love Me Tender, only to be sucked into a string of mediocre musicals.

2. Mark Wahlberg
You did good in dramatic roles in films like Boogie Nights, and you were fun to watch in the remake of The Italian Job, and you purely kicked ass in The Departed. It’s almost as if you radiant good vibrations.

3. Frank Sinatra
Ol’ Blues Eyes will likely be remembered as a rat pack prince, but he done good in work such as The Manchurian Candidate.

4. Will Smith
Someone gave him a sitcom, a few parts where he blew up aliens, and a heck of a good dramatic turn as Muhammed Ali and that’s great. But, lest you forget: the nightmare on my street and the parents who just don’t understand.

5. Madonna
Just kidding. I’ll start that again.

5. Mick Jagger
No, seriously, let me give you a real Number 5.

5. Beyoncé Knowles
Who could forget her immortal role as Foxxy Cleopatra in Goldmember? OK, for real this time …

5. Dwight Yoakam
Yoakam will always be a country crooner, but he also has an extensive filmography, including a brilliant turn as a perpetual asshole in Sling Blade.

Posted in Film week, Top 5 | 4 Responses »
Tags: Beyonce Knowles, Dwight Yoakam, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Mark Wahlberg, Mick Jagger, Will Smith

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