Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 2004)
WOW Hall Membership •lid Cole & the College Girls ofTora Bora f $Af: • Brian Cutean ( 0£{ • Tim Mueller &V 1 Ncl Applegate '—, • Scott Franzen Food and Beverages Donated by Over 70 I axal Businesses TOOK'' AKUMA AWOL-ONt CIRCUS Dll, 1XIS1ER0. UF{ ItfXAU, U JAt RADIOINAOIV1 wih PIGEON JOHN m 3 BUKD M1CS WHITE HOT ODYSSEY WOW HHLL Sunday °*C. 5th ★ ail shows are alt ages ★ www.wowhall.opg ★ 5an.2TH6 ★ IJO School of Music & Department of Dance DECEMBER CONCERTS For more information on School of Music events, call 346-5678. Thur. HOLIDAY CHORAL CONCERT 12/2 UO Choral Ensembles 8 pm, Beall Hall $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens Fri. OREGON JAZZ ENSEMBLE & LAB BANDS 12/3 UO Jazz Ensembles 8 p.m., Beall Hall $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens Fri. FALL LOFT: “Eight@Eight” 12/3 Department of Dance 8 p.m., Dougherty Theater New and reconstructed works by graduate students. $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens Sat. REPERTOIRE SINGERS and 12/4 CAMPUS BAND UO Ensembles 2:30 p.m., Beall Hall FREE Admission Sun. UO PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE 12/5 UO Ensemble Noon, Room 198 Music $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens Sun. UO GOSPEL ENSEMBLES 12/5 UO Ensembles 5 p.m., Beall Hall $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens For our complete calendar, check: music.uoregon.edu ■ CD review Simple Plan's newest release simply disappointing, cliche 'Still Not Getting Any.. ! contains sappy ballads and stadium rock songs BY RYAN MURPHEY PULSE REPORTER In most cases the definition of bad music is subjective, but “Still Not Getting Any...,” the sophomore release from Canadian bubblegum punkers Simple Plan, is an excep tion to that rule. It is a little known fact that there is a direct correlation between how much a band sucks and the num ber of band members with dyed black faux-hawks and side-swiped emo haircuts. Four of Simple Plan’s members possess the aforemen tioned hairstyles, and if it weren’t for the bald guy, listening to this record would actually kill you. Luckily for Lava Records (the peddlers of this album and other such filth), there is also a direct correlation between how much a band sucks and how well their record sells. Logically, “Still Not Getting Any...” sold 139,928 al bums on its first day and entered the Billboard top 200 at No. 3. To borrow a lyric from the album itself — “In a perfect world, this could never happen.” The declining quality of cartoons is what’s really to blame. Through out the nineties, good cartoons like “G.I. Joe,” “Jem” and “Duck Tales” were phased out in favor of crap such as “Goof Troop” and a botched attempt to revamp “Trans formers.” This left a void for Amer icans ages 10 to 15, which was filled by watching MTV and “re belling” a la Avril Lavigne. As a re sult, more and more popular music is being made to suit the intellect of publicly-schooled American teenagers. Had this new generation of media consumers been properly sedated by high-caliber animated Courtesy The new album from Simple Plan is another uninspired effort ready-made for the mall punk crowd. violence, they would have had time to mature and make rational deci sions before becoming a primary market in the music industry. “Still Not Getting Any...” re quires a word stronger than cliche. Every aspect of this album is so trite and overdone that even 15 year-old mall punks, dressed head to-toe in pink and black with mass produced anarchy patches ironed onto their pre-worn jackets are go ing to pretend they don’t like them. Every verse, chorus, bridge and fill on this album has appeared in at least seven other pop-punk band’s songs, and to call the lyrics banal would be far too forgiving. The album kicks off with the Jolt Cola-induced pop-punk anthem, “Shut Up!,” in which vocalist/lyri cist Pierre Bouvier tells an un named critic just how he feels with less than groundbreaking lyrics such as “Don’t tell me who I should be and don’t tell me what’s right for me.” The next track, “Wel come to My Life,” is a shoe-in for the soundtrack of every television series based on rich suburban kids in southern California. It achieves the impossible by being even more boring and lifeless than the rest of the album, which is probably why it’s the first radio single. In “Me Against the World,” a vaguely rebellious bastardization of Bon Jovi-style stadium rock, the band takes on the ever oppressive “They” with lyrics such as, “I’m gonna prove them wrong" and, “They’ll never bring us down,” which segues seamlessly into “Crazy” — the bands attempt at political commentary where Bouvi er astutely points out that, “If you open your eyes, you’ll see that something is wrong.” Though it is never made clear whether the “something” is “rich guys driving SUVs” or “young girls dying to be on TV,” the next song, “Jump,” of fers a blanket solution to all of life’s frustrations in the lyrics, “I don’t wanna think about tomorrow. I just don’t care tonight. I just wanna jump!” The majority of the album sounds like a 5-year-old with ADHD was force-fed caffeine and unleashed in a room full of bicycle horns, but it also contains a spat tering of sappy ballads tailor-made for a whiny teenage girl whose par ents just don’t understand that if they don’t buy her that cute new Volkswagen Jetta, she’s never go ing to be truly happy. The closing track “Untitled” provides the ideal song to listen to while pouting over any one of preteen life’s many tri als. Whether it be breaking up with a girlfriend of one week or getting grounded for wearing black finger nail polish, lyrics such as, “I’m sick of this life. I just wanna scream. How could this happen to me?” are sure to fuel all the angst a teenager needs, without any of the substance. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this band is that they are from Canada. It’s hard to imagine the same country that brought us Kids In the Hall, Mike Meyers and Rush could be responsible for this cultural atrocity. Then again, there was that whole Celine Dion incident. ryanmurphey@ dailyemerald. com ■ DVD review The classic 'show about nothing' hits stores as a DVD collection Seinfeld fans can now purchase the comedy's first three seasons, including the pilot episode, extra commentary BY NA3ASHA CHILINGER1AN SENIOR PULSE REPORTER When the last episode of “Sein feld” aired during my senior year of high school, an era of refreshing laughter with New Yorkers Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer on Thursday nights ended. This “show about nothing” means far from nothing to me — watching “Sein feld” always meant stress relief, joy and fun. Since 1998, “Seinfeld” fans have had to rely on reruns, but now we can enjoy the show any time, thanks to Sony Pictures’ DVD release of “Seinfeld,” a collection of the successful comedy’s first three seasons. For $49.95, you can get either the 18-episode DVD of the first two sea sons, or the 22-episode collection of the third season. The $119.95 Limit ed Edition Gift Set includes both DVDs and a set of salt and pepper shakers and playing cards featuring Monk’s Diner, the “Seinfeld” charac ters’ watering hole. The release contains some of my favorite Seinfeld moments such as “The Deal,” when Jerry and Elaine discover that things get a little weird when they try to sleep together as friends. When Elaine’s birthday rolls around, a confused Jerry presents her with cash and a card reading, “To a great friend...and more.” In “The Dog,” Jerry is stuck with a dog when an annoying airline passenger has a heart attack and asks Jerry, who is sitting next to him, to look af ter “Farfel” during his hospital stay. Since Jerry is forced to stay home with the dog, Elaine and George, who are used to hanging out when Jerry is around, realize they have nothing to say to each other as “friends-in-law.” An overdue library book from 1971, a lost car in a park ing garage and a long wait at a Chi nese restaurant are among other topics in these classic episodes. Extras are a special treat on the collection. Both DVDs feature audio commentaries on the episode and “Notes About Nothing” lists facts and tidbits on the screen about each episode. The first volume includes the original and revised versions of the pilot episode, a 60-minute “How It All Began” documentary and “The Tonight Show” appearances with Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards (Kramer). Volume 2 includes “Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny to Cos mo,” which tells the story of the real-life inspiration for Kramer. What always made me smile about “Seinfeld” were the ridicu lous and embarrassing situations the characters got themselves into. When I was having a bad day, see ing the characters’ hopeless prob lems involving mundane things made me feel a whole lot better. It was also so clever, the way all the sub-plots tied into each other by the end of each episode, and how each story line accumulated into the worst possible situation, just like “I Love Lucy.” The show’s last few seasons went a little downhill, so this collection guarantees the best of the best. Get “Seinfeld” on DVD so that the next time you’re doing nothing, you can watch “the show about nothing” and feelTOO times happier. natchilingenan@dailyemerald. com
