Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 12, 1990 R ECORDS love this ever-changing o true test of a disco band is Continued from page 5 its songs transcend the r man. But, as madmen's lyrics go, penchant for fluff. Wit they sure are fun to listen to and to exceptions, ABC prove t scream along with. was more to their (so far)e Thanks to the Tipper Gore career than mere pop m groupies, there are two covers of this Absolutely, a greatest hits album. One, of which there are rela- contains a few mini-classics tively few copies, depicts three par- The songs are arrange tially nude figures: Farrell, girlfriend logically for the most par Casey Niccoli, and an unidentified CD contains four remixes. woman. The other, "clean" version ten will prove just how i features the text of the First band is/was. From the dinn Amendment. Buy the former; sup- sound of "Poison Arrow port freedom of speech. mock-hard rock of "That'V . ... itfit. The s whether medium's h a few hat there eight-year ediocrity. package, s. d chrono- i, and the One lis- fickle the ner-jacket " to the Was Then thing, though. The best songs have one common characteristic: a catchi- ness that is hard to resist. And few would argue that being stuck in a rut is better than changing with the times. Not that all of the 17 songs are worthy of praise; there are a few here that don't deserve to be on anyone's greatest hits record. Tunes like "The Night You Murdered Love" and "S.O.S." reach new heights in corniness. Yet the gems outweigh the lemons. "Be Near Me," "When Smokey Sings," and "The Look of Love" should be high on any best- of-the-eighties list. All in all, Absolutely points out the highs (and a few of the lows) of a career that has too-often been over- looked. There a few songs that I would have liked to see included (e.g., "A to Z" and "The Power of ABC -Tony Barkow Absolutely Mercury Records Few bands are as unapologeti- cally disco as ABC and few are as image-conscious and trendy. Yet I But This is Now" to the bizarre techno pop of "How to be a Mil- lionaire" to the pseudo-Motown of "When Smokey Sings" to the house music of "One Better World," ABC seem to have tried nearly every (pop) musical style. Not that this is a bad Persuasion"), but when has any compilation truly been complete? With the release of a greatest hits record, one may wonder what the fu- ture holds for ABC. My guess is that as long as there are new styles to try out, ABC will be around for a while. And that's fine with me. -Mike Molitor Meat Beat Manifesto 99% Wax Trax All too often, one hears the story of the brilliant records of brilliant bands falling on deaf American ears. Although there may be several possible reasons for this (e.g., asshole conservative radio programmers, big record companies too concerned with the bottom line, the poor distribution capabilities of small indie record companies, etc.) the fact remains that in a perfect world, Meat Beat Manifesto's first record, Storm the Studio, would have received much more attention. As it happened, the song "Strap Down" got a limited amount of exposure in acid house clubs and earned the band a small cult following. However, the new record, although not in general American release yet, shows that the group deserves much more. Storm the Studio was a confusing. Although there are only four songs listed, any respectable CD player would insist that there are 14. The music was as dense as it f r ! r7 MERYL STREEP SHIRLEY MAcLAINE DENNIS QUAID ABC's greatest hits album is a mixed bag containing all the essential hits. comes, creating a real "wall of sound" replete with hyperkinetic synthbass lines, excellent and perfectly apt sampling and the best white boy rapping this side of 3rd Bass. 99% picks up where the last record left off, although it makes things much simpler for the listener. First of all, the record contains the DOES SEXUALITY HAVE A HISTORY? CATHARINE MACKINNON Professor of Law University of Michigan Wednesday, September 12,1990 4:00 P.M. Amphitheater, Fourth Floor Rackham Building Cosponsored by the Institute for the Humanities and the Law School -p F m- Helping - is Learning f 4j traditional 10 separate tracks. Secondly, the music is stripped down a bit; instead of two million things going on at once, now themt are only a million. Notable tracks include "Now,' "Psyche-Out," and "10 X Faster Than the Speed of Love," all of which strip down the Meat Beat sound without losing its character, The best tracks however, are "99%'° and the single "Dogstar Man/Helter Skelter." These two songs are mixed acid house-style, blending together and jumping back and forth, thu$ creating probably the best nine or so minutes of dance music in yeart Both "Hello Teenage America" anrd "Hallucination Generation" ark comedic numbers; the forme' features dialogue from an old (ang thankfully forgotten) radio or TV show and a jazzy piano riff, while the latter has samples from an anti- LSD film that one can imagine being shown in high schools .aft across the country in the latJ Sixties. The downside of the record is mainly its length. While Storm the Studio was over seventy minut 4 long, 99% is closer to forty. Alsooa couple songs fall short of the standard set by the rest of the recoml. Nonetheless, 99% is better overal than Storm the Studio, even if it iss4 bit shorter and its single isn't quk as strong as "Strap Down." I had a chance to talk with two the members of the band in Detr*t after their opening set for Nine In . Nails. While they were pleased about' the exposure they were gaining 40 the tour, they expressed doubts th'1 the new record would be releaseO anytime in the near futures Hopefully for the band, not r mention the listening public, it wil Me? I've got my copy, but t starting to get worn out. -Mike Molit~ The Pixies "Velouria" (12") ElektraovraI Are the Pixies the most overratd rock group in the western world what? They do have nice rec4 a sleeves though. This one has Bare in some kind of bondage gear, s plied by Ken, no doubt. The Pi have carved out a nice little niche N themselves as wicked surrealists, bit the more one hears of Black Francis morbid shriekings, theclearer it that he's grown up as an indulge~ brat who's found himself in a play ground where all these grown-ups a tually take him seriously. Ever record sees Francis in another regrP See Records, Page 9 Having a wonderful time, wish I were here. 3. "V. i _ COLUMBIA PICTURES PRESENTS "POSICAROS FROM THE EDGE" MUSIC BY CARLY SIMON EDITOR SAM O'SIEEN PRODUCTION DESIGNER PKRIZIA VON BRANDENSIEIN DIREClOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL DALWAS, A.S.- EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS NEIL MACHLIS AND ROBERT GREENHUT SCREENPLAY BY CARRIE FISHER BASED ON HER NOVEL PRODUCED BY MIKE NICHOLS AND JOHN CALLEY DIRECTED BY MIKE NICHOLS A COLUMBIA PICTURES RELEASE ARESTRGTEDA .. ""iNS *""""""""SIJSJDIES. 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