Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner - Spaced Out: The Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.96 You Save: $5.02 (56%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.95 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Spaced Out: The Best of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner
Free Music Review: "You never can find a parking space!" -Leonard Nimoy
Hit: 5 Stars
An unintentional comedy album that surprisingly doesn't grow tiring, Spaced Out is a collection of the "best" (if there is such a thing) of Star Trek's William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The album is infinitely quotable, and is an absolute joy to anyone who likes, loves, or hates Star Trek.
Shatner, who until this year only had one album under his belt, makes far less appearances on the album, but he makes up for it with the entertainment value of his songs. "King Henry" is Shatner at his best, emoting every syllable, and would be a great starting point for stand-up comedians who plan to roast his acting. The Sinatra classic "Very Good Year" comes off surprisingly sincere, I have nothing bad to say about it. But Shatner truly shines on "Lucy In The Sky", as he tries to convey the vibe of the Beatles' acid trip lyrics by groaning them like a cartoon ghost. It's as good as it sounds. His highlight is the now-legendary "Mr. Tambourine Man". The usual Shatner pauses are incredibly long, as he stumbles through the Bob Dylan classic. "In the.... JINGLE... jangle... mornin'...", and concludes with an inexplicable anguished cry of the song's title, which is completely jarring and a little scary the first time you hear it. The bizzare nature of it will have your friends talking and laughing about it for months.
Nimoy, however, actually tries to sing. It's not that he's a terrible singer, it's just that everything about Leonard Nimoy is just... strange (which is why he gained a role as a man from another planet in the first place). His attempts at sincere takes on classics like Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" and Glen Campbell's "Gentle On My Mind" only evoke the mental image of Spock with a guitar in his lap singing ole' country tunes. On "Highly Illogical", Nimoy sings in character as Spock, describing ironic things about life. The song is hilariously dated when he sings about the perils of "automobiles" and their "push-button windows", when he points out the drawback to our dependancy on cars isn't the depletion of our fossil fules, but that "you never can find a parking space". The best moment on the album, in my opinion, is a mangled song about a mangled soldier; "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town". The song opens with a drum beat intro, the music drops out croaks out the most non-Spock thing you could conceivable imagine him saying (let alone singing): "You painted up your lips and rolled and curled your pretty haiiiiiir!". A friend almost got into a car accident during his first listen to this intro, because he veered off the road in downtown city traffic while laughing. The same subject that Metallica crossed over into the mainstream for dealing with, ends up the death knell for Nimoy's hopes of being a respected singer.
The album's a absolute blast, and the songs are catchy enough to keep them from wearing out their welcome. Oh, and Lord Of The Rings fans? Listen to "Bilbo Baggins". Trust me.
Free Music Review: Nearly flawless oddity
Hit: 5 Stars
Has any recorded moment surpassed the intense dementia of Shatner's final scream in "Mr. Tambourine Man"? Do we really want to know?This absurd CD opens the window to two cult favorites who found second careers as outlandishly kitsch performers. Much has been said of Nimoy's earnest, flat baritone; the reams of Shatner critiques could fill a large, easily combustible windmill -- but that would be too convenient, and a loss to people like me who occasionally need to be reminded why they (and others) actually listen to this stuff -- closely.
These recordings are either dizzying, hardcore, lovable dreck, or, to some, aural manure. History won't decide: you will, if you dare.
I have a complaint about this disk. Yes, just one, about two selections. One of the "Nimoy" tracks doesn't belong here for any reason, as it's nothing more than forgettable lounge muzak with zero artistic input from the Green One. "Music to Watch Space Girls By" sounds like a Herb Alpert outtake where he forgot his trumpet. Also, "Spock Thoughts" is just "Desiderata" recited blandly over third-rate background noise. I can do better, and so can you.
Instead, the compilers should have included "You Are Not Alone," a hideously warbled message of solidarity in this vast, impersonal universe (certainly a theme dear to Spock), and "Alien," a superior spoken dissertation on, well, alienation. They're featured on some other CD that costs nearly $60 used. I'll stick with my cut-out bin cassette for now.
The highlights of "Spaced Out" for me are the most famous offerings: the delirious Shatner takes on Dylan and the Beatles, plus the Nimoy novelty "Bilbo Baggins." The "Golden Throats" CD includes a quizzically-voiced, faded-in lead-in to Shatner's "Lucy in the Sky" edited off for this CD, but it seems we completists will always suffer a little. Also not to be missed are the bathyspherical depths of Nimoy's faulty tone and phrasing found on "Where is Love" and "Sunny"; the pure, howling turgidity of his deconstruction of "Proud Mary"; and a horror actually released as a single (according to the entertaining sleeve notes), and possibly written just for the Vulcan maestro -- "I'd Love Making Love to You," which exudes as much sultry seduction as a frozen duck on an antenna.
I try to imagine how the backing musicians made it through these sessions without screaming themselves, and wetting the floor with laughter.
P.S. I don't know how to create the "voting buttons."
Free Music Review: A treasure
Hit: 5 Stars
Do not misunderstand me here, I am not of the opinion that this album is good in the sense that it's a musical masterpiece or anything. On the contrary, it is quite possibly the worst album ever recorded. The two "artists" knew this of course, they were never under the impression that they were any good at music. When Shatner was asked about this classic piece of dribble on his latest TV biography, he almost burst into tears (or so I've been told) with laughter. And of course he did, him and Nimoy never expected to sell a single copy. Now they're laughing all the way to the bank, because of two kinds of people:1) The fanatical star trek maniac who absolutely has to have everything related to the classic TV show. He/She is so blinded by their love for the Captain's character that they don't realize that the album is crap, and they actually take it seriously. (I've become aware that some people actually refer to this garbage as a concept album?)
2)Then there's people like me, who buy it for the sole purpous to share the joke with Nimoy and Shatner.
True, you can only listen to this stupid CD once in a while, and then only to cheer yourself up. It is quite possibly stronger than prozak in that sense. Come one people, how can you not burst several internal organs during a raucous fit of laughter when Shatner starts his insane psycho ramblings or when Bilbo's story is rendered beautifully (cough, cough) by Nimoy. I don't think I've laughed so hard in my entire life, so then, why shouldn't I buy it. $18.00 is a small price to pay for infinite laughter. Yes, I get harrassed by friends, and why shouldn't they harrass me? I just "wasted" money on a piece of crap. But I enjoy it, just by imagining what it would have been like to record an album like this. With Nimoy on the verge of cracking up during "the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" and Shatner flamboyantly overacting each line in his trademark Cpt. Kirk voice. This is the kind of thing that 20 years from now, my kids will find in an old box covered in dust,to be put into the ole' Compact Disc player and enjoyed again. A true relic, and a treasure.
Free Music Review: Bad Beyond All Infinite Dimensions of Conceivable Badness
Hit: 5 Stars
. . . It's One of the Greatest Things I've Ever Heard!In the Brian Wilson documentary, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, Tom Petty opines that the Beach Boys' auteur is one of the Greats: "You just can't make music any better than that." By the same token, here is something equally Great, because it is music as bad as it could possibly be -- as ANY music could possibly be -- which makes it more than just an album -- it's an artifact -- and I'm not talking about Nimoy's songs, which are merely mediocre, but instead directing your attention to those of his swashbuckling Star Trek co-star, which defy every rule of good taste in the brash, bold strokes that characterizes only the best television work of this august, earthbound god I've come to know as the Shat. Most of the Shat's 1968 landmark recording The Transformed Man is included here and to be truly appreciated it must be heard in the proper sequence, in its entirety of gleeful wretchedness -- it's a better concept album than Sgt. Pepper and its version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" beats the Beatles' hands down in its fully-rendered approximation of drug-induced psychosis, but then so are all the standards enriched as they could only be when voiced by Big Bill, that unique talent -- but it's only in print intermittently, so this import comp will have to do. Thank God for programmable CD players! No opportunity is squandered, be it the obvious, unimaginitive song selection, the contemptible arrangements, the bad poetry, or Shatner's holy gift for steamrolling over the subtlety in whatever material given him. This is truly the standard of badness against which all other bad works must be judged. That said, even worse was to come, and this disc suffers from the absence of the penultimate Shatner "performance," "Rocket Man," and omits his take on Guns 'n' Roses' "You Could Be Mine" from the 1991 Video Music Awards. Still, the work included here is miraculous and essential listening; one cannot call himself a serious music listener without owning something by William Shatner.
Free Music Review: A great cure for a bad mood
Hit: 5 Stars
Being a fan of the Golden Throats Great Celebrity Sing-Off, I thought "Spaced Out" would be a worthy addition to my collection of weird music. And this disc definitely does not disappoint in the weird department. Nimoy has more disc time than Shatner does, but since Shatner tends to recite Shakespeare at loud decibels more than anything else, this really isn't a problem for me (though I must confess his "Hamlet" is strangely catchy). And if you're in a bad mood or have had a rotten day, "Spaced Out" will definitely bring a smile to your face.
Certainly, we're not talking great musicians or great music here, which anyone even casually acquainted with Nimoy's and Shatner's musical efforts should already know. Nimoy doesn't screech like Shatner, which is in his favor. However, though Nimoy tries really hard, he can't seem to stop himself from going off key from time to time, as is the case in his rendition of the legendary Bobby Darin's "If I Were A Carpenter."
But - it's his very off-keyness and his earnest enunciation (he pronounces EVERY syllable of EVERY word, unlike most rock "artists" who think mumbling is cool) that makes this disc...well...hysterically funny. (And his spoken-word Spock-isms like "Highly Illogical" are a scream too). And of course, Shatner's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" are always good for a laugh. It's so bad, it's good, as the saying goes.
But for the record, I also want to note that some of Nimoy's tracks actually aren't that bad. For example, he does a very passable rendition of "If I Had a Hammer" wherein he actually does sing on key, and his "I Walk the Line" is certainly no worse than Johnny Cash's. In fact, Nimoy's "I Walk the Line" may even be better than Johnny Cash's, since Nimoy actually sings, whereas Johnny Cash talks his songs.
So - to sum up - buy this disc. It's a great cure for a bad mood or a rotten day - and you may be surprised at how some of Nimoy's tunes aren't half bad!