Reeve Carney "Rise Above"

If I say, "Tell me what you know about the Spiderman musical on Broadway," the one bit of knowledge that you likely have about it, is that the production has been troubled. Some might say disastrous.

If I say, "Tell me how you feel about U2," you're likely to give me a pretty strong opinion. The fans are long-time fans. The haters can't stand the band.

When I'm listening to the new music that comes into the station, it's best to listen with unbiased ears.

It shouldn't matter if I have previously liked the band or not, the new song should be judged on its merits.

It shouldn't matter if the song doesn't meet previous expectations of the artist (i.e. if Eddie Vedder does a ukulele album, it shouldn't be dismissed because it doesn't sound like Pearl Jam), it should be judged on its merits.

It shouldn't matter even if I like the song. What's important is if I think the mvyradio listeners will like the song, and it should be judged on those merits.

This song comes with a lot of baggage. It comes with built in prejudices against Broadway musical music, which can be corny and doesn't really have a place on Rock radio. It comes with built in prejudices against this particular musical, in that the show is mostly known for the accidents and retooling and director-firing, all while getting a Ho-Hum from the critics. And it comes with built in prejudices against/for U2, in that you can't help but judge this song against previous U2 songs.

So how to you listen, without prejudice?

And more importantly, should you (listen without prejudice)?

Because listeners aren't going to take a moment to set aside their prejudices while listening to the song, are they?

It's a tricky balance, trying to judge a song on its own merits, judge a song in context of its history and pedigree, and judge how others are going to judge the song (and what criteria they might use to do so), and then repeat this process for each and every song you consider.

So, play Program Director. What do you think? If you knew nothing about the singer or the song, would you like "Rise Above"? Does the story elevate or deflate the tune? How about the players?

Here are 3 versions, with varying degrees of context. What do you think?



See the song performed on Letterman, on Youtube.


Hear the version with Bono & The Edge, on Youtube.


And the version from American Idol, on Youtube.

Ted Leo "Bottled In Cork"

A good decade ago, my friends and I were mocking the entertainment news of the day: Coming to Broadway, was a musical adaptation of James Joyce's "The Dead."

Really? Joyce's "The Dead"? As a musical?

The Irishman's wordy, dense stories of introspection just did not seem ripe for musical adaptation.

We joked about future musicals:

Death Of A Salesman: The Musical
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being: The Musical
Atlas Shrugged: The Musical

It all seemed fairly ridiculous. But little did we know, that now everything was open to musical adaptation.

In the last decade, musical movies, non-musical movies, kids movies, punk albums, brief encounters of Rock N Roll Legends and absurdist British comedy sketches from the 1970s have all be adapted into musicals.

And this trend fans out to other media, with TV shows based on Twitter feeds and blockbuster summer movies based on great literary sources like, um, the board game Battleship.

So, this parody video---featuring an awesome, non-parody song---is probably a decade late of sharply observing a strange, lame trend.

But it's hilarious all the same.

Ted Leo And The Pharmacists - "Bottled In Cork" (Official Video) from John Hodgman