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Kylie may be popular, but she sings like a weasel
Kylie Minogue
Kylie
PWL Records
I know it's a long way back, but
do you remember the first time you
had a Big Mac? It looked so
appetizing; you anticipated nourish-
ment; you hoped for meat! But then
you bit into it, and your mouth was
filled with mush, and mayonnaise
oozed out of the bun. Well, that
feeling is akin to slapping a disc on
the turntable, expecting music and
good vibrations, but hearing only
Kylie's shrill tones over 120 beats
per minute.
The aural equivalent of the Big
Mac has sold a lot of units. A cut
off the album, "I Could Be So
Lucky," was a UK number one for
months. The sight of Kylie's navel
in the video somehow captivated
millions. The Australian soap opera
star is big in Britain. This is largely
due to teen appeal and to her produc-
Soap star's debut is like a Big Mac - gushy
Bullet Boys
ers - Stock, Aitken, and Waterman.
Everything they touch - Mel &
Kim, Rick Astley, Bananarama -
turns to gold (discs). The production
triumvirate take dance floor beats
emanating from Chicago, Detroit,
and London, and strip them of all
invention. Of course, because these
guys have a hit factory, they have
delusions of grandeur, imagining
themselves as modern day Holland,
Dozier & Holland. However, the
Motown team never stretched banal-
ity to the point found on this album.
Like a weasel being strangled,
Kylie sings ten songs, nine of which
her producers wrote during
lunchtime. Lowlights on Kylie in-
clude the imaginatively titled "Love
at First Sight," the incredible sound-
a-like singles "I Could Be So
Lucky" and "Got To Be Certain,"
and a piece of continental angst
entitled "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourqoui."
An unspeakable act of violence is
committed against Little Eva's "The
Locomotion." This version is the
mayonnaise. Even as a junk con-
sumer product Kylie is unbearably
tedious. Buy a Whopper instead.
- Nabeel Zuberi
Tranvision
Vamp
Pop Art
MCA/Uni Records
There are pouts, and then there are
pouts! Brigitte Bardot and Rosanna
Arquette have pouts, whereas Wendy
James, lead singer of Transvision
Vamp, merely pouts. She ma nages
to do this, along with a fair bit of
cooing, foran entire album of
adorable rubbish. I love this album!
It's just so obviously contrived with
almost every hip reference in the
book and every classic guitar riff
from Duane Eddy through T. Rex to
the Buzzcocks. State-of-the-Art
rock'n'roll. The musicians are pop
fans; they steal so much they don't
even try to conceal it. They reveal a
complete vacuousness. The single "I
Want Your Love" is the most glori-
ous piece of moronic pop desire I've
heard since the Ramones third al-
bum. Elsewhere on this record, TV
pay homage to Pop Tart Andy
Warhol. "Andy Warhol's Dead" is a
suitably flat song that would have
Andy dancing in The Factory in the
sky. "Hanging Out With Halo
Jones" is a tribute to the 2000 A.D.
comic book character, "Revolution
Baby" might even have got Lenin
kicking up his heels, and "Sex Kick"
is corny as hell. Maybe TV should
be trashing aesthetics rather than
aestheticizing trash, but if you sim-
ply like good, driving rock-pop that
isn't played by alcoholic Americans
with long hair, then get this here
new album. It's sleek, but pops like
bubblegum.
-Nabeel Zuberi
Bullet
Warner
Boys
Brothers
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"Do you want it sleazy?/I can
make it easy," growls Bullet Boys'
lead singer Marq Torien on this new
band's self-titled debut album. He's
not kidding. This is real sleaze
metal... blended with a big dose of
playfulness.
Fortunately, the combination is
not too bad. Torien screams through
songs like "Hard as a Rock,"
"Smooth up in Ya," and "Kissin'
Kitty," and comes out sounding like
a mix of Krokus' Marc Storace and
the singer for Helix. He and
technically proficient, yet generally
uncreative lead guitarist Mick Sweda
are backed by solid, pounding
rhythms supplied by bassist Lonnie
Vencent and 19 year-old drummer
Jimmy D'Anda.
It's hard to tell how much the Ted
Templeman production enhances the
Bullet Boys' sound, but a few cuts,
especially "Crank Me Up," "Hell on
my Heels," and "Owed to Joe," shine
with creative touches that may point
to a fresh metal band ready to fill the
raunch and roll shoes left empty
since David Lee Roth began doing
Huey Lewis impersonations and Van
Halen shifted into Top-40.
It's not the best heavy metal al-
bum ever made, but it would make a
decent addition to any metal collec-
tion. Keep an ear out for their next
one.
- Mark Kolar
ROOF
Continued from Page 5
Glass will be touring with the show
and conducting his own ensemble.
"The music is written more like an
interactive chamber piece," Glass
said. "It's also modeled on the idea
of a movie. The idea of having a
sound effects track is something that
comes from the cinema, not theater
or opera. We use new instruments,
and these sounds become a whole
other musical element."
Airplanes is itself a whole other
experience. It is a multi-media pre-
sentation, but whereas other multi-
media shows combine various prere-
corded material of different types,
Airplanes extends this idea a step
further by mixing a multi-media
presentation with live music and a
live performance. Should the work
as a whole be equal to the sum of its
pans, then it will surely bring down
the roof.
The show will begin 8 p.m. Sat-
urday night at Michigan Theater.
DURANT
Continued from Page 10
write from a "universal perspec-
tive." The federal government under
Roosevelt formed the Federal The-
ater Project, originally designed to
"reverse the aristocratic posture of
earlier theatrical operations in this
country." Black actress Rose Mc-
Clendon proposed the idea of
"separate Negro units" within the
theater project that would provide a
training ground for actors and play-
wrights.
The 1960s and 1970s represented
a great artistic explosion known as
the Black Arts Movement. Compa-
nies like the Negro Ensemble
Company and the National Black
Theater Company were at the fore-
front. Black theater was a vital part
in communicating information
about Black culture, almost rivaling
the role of the Black church in the
community. The NEC, founded by
Douglas Turner Ward in 1967, did
not believe that theater was for
whites only and cited the need for
the creation of an autonomous pro-
fessional Black theater. Black au-
tonomy for Ward was not synony-
mous with racial separation; he at-
tempted to cultivate mostly Black
audiences without excluding whites.
"The audience need not be all-Black,-
to the exclusion of whites,.but for
the Black playwright Blacks were
'his primary audience, the first per-
sons of his address, potentially the
most advanced, the most respon-
sive, or the most critical," Ward
said. They have given such Black
productions as Day of Absence
1968, The River Niger 1972 and A
Soldier's Play 1981.
The National Black Theater: Sun
People of 125th Street was also
founded during this period by Bar-
bara Ann Teer, and its main goal
was to start a Black standard of the-
ater. Some of the standards and ex-
amples set by the "sun people" are
the basis for goals and purposes
that today's Black theater adheres
to.
It is generally agreed that Black
theater should raise the level of
consciousness in the community. It
is educational and political; it clari-
fies issues, is often family oriented,
and most importantly is entertain-
ing. Examples that Black theater is
not only entertaining but also has
educational value can be seen in the
plays Fences and the Colored Mu-
seum. The three main tenets for
judging Black theater are that it
should be collective, encompassing
all areas of the Black experience;
committed, committed to change;
and functional, functional to the
lives of Black people.
There are indeed obstacles to the
further growth of Black theater but
none that can't be easily overcome.
Many Black writers are forced to
comply to a Eurocentric perspective
INTERVIEW
Continued from Page 10
A: That could require a long an-
swer... I think it's clear to most
people who think about it that any
institution in this country is going
to reflect its problems. Certainly
the universities and colleges of this
country reflect its racism. I some-
times talk about my own being
here as a racist fact. I was hired by
our department in 1971 together
with three women, two of whom
where black and one which was
white. I'm the only one who's still
here. The white male is the one
who made it through. The fact that
I'm in a classroom as a white male,
teaching, is a racist fact because it's
likely, and I don't know the per-
centages, that a student will have
people like me, rather than a person
of color, rather than a woman in the
classroom. So the fact that I'm
there, in and of itself, represents the
insufficient... for various reasons,
and it takes a lot of discussion. In
its hiring practices, in its recruit-
ment, this is a racist institution.
This is something we all are think-
ing, one way or another, and are
trying to do something about in
soft ways or hard ways. Or, many
of us are.
W: What do you think of the term
"objectivity," particularly in rela-
tionship to terms like "education"
and "indoctrination?" In other
words, is the concept of a value-
free, or apolitical education a myth?
A: The answer's yes. A lot of this
takes long answers but I'll give it a
try. It's been demonstrated by edu-
cational writers; Sambols, and Her-
bert Guiness, Jonathan Kozol... a
whole range of people, that our
suburban schools, which tend to be
mainly white, and some of our elite
urban schools, which tend to be
mainly white or with upper-class
citizens of color, are schools which
have many options for students.
Music, sports, debate clubs, things
like that, are given to these stu-
dents. They have a sense that they
have a chance to advance, move up,
make choices, and be creative. Our
inner-city schools are places that
don't have these options. The
facilities are bad, they are often
talked about in terms of armed
camps where people go. Instead of
getting a good education these peo-
ple are essentially being tracked
into lower income jobs, if any jobs
at all.
There's a huge percent of our
Black population, of Black youth,
in Michigan who either end up dead
or in prisons. This is the way our
institutions operate. They are bi-
ased, they also track people of a
certain race and background and
wealth into certain positions.
Therefore the teaching which allows
this, the teachers which allow this,
the kind of system which allows
this, the texts which allow it -
wl
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when writing due to the assumption
that Black theater is sub-standard.
More Black writers should be en-
couraged to write about their expe-
riences or in the case of white writ-
ers, at least consult Black people
when writing about them. As far as
the audience goes, many Blacks are
not as educated about theater as they
should be. There is a need to de-
velop more theaters closer to Black
communities; the survival of Black
theater depends on cultivating a
theater audience. Many young
Blacks today feel that theater is old
fashioned, and would rather go see
Run DMC or a movie. Black the-
aters could offer workshops to get
people to contribute and encourage
concerned citizens and companies to
lend their support. There is a need
for more Black newspaper critics
because many times a play may
make particular references that only
Blacks understand. Oftentimes a
white critic reviewing a perfor-
Expand Your Tin
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PAGE 6
WEEKEND/C}CTOBER 7, 1'88-
I
W EK ND/C}urbi DER 7, 1988
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