8 - The Michigan Daily -Wednesday, October 22, 1997 Miss ackson gets nast inside her sexy 'Velvet Rop&. Janet Jackson The Velvet Rope Virgin Records Janet Jackson - you've come a long way, baby. All right, I know your first name ain't baby, it's Janet - Miss Jackson if I'm nasty - but it has been a decade since you reminded everyone of this fact. And in that decade you've changed immense- ly as an artist and as a person: Starting as a shy child star striving for "Control": then becoming a confident dance drill sergeant, leading the writhing masses of your "Rhythm Nation"; and next asserting your sexuality, your first name and your washboard abs on "Janet" But now it's 1997, and you're talk- ing about sadomasochism, spousal abuse, masturbation and the all-around hedonistic pleasures of sex. Frankly, Miss Jackson, you're getting a little too nasty - and that's, as you once sang, "alright with me." On the 15 songs and seven interludes of "The Velvet Rope," Janet Jackson does get nasty, though it's all in the name of reinvigorating her music and her artistic persona, a renaissance of an '80s dance queen and '90s sex object. A rebirth is exactly what "Velvet" is. On the record, Janet takes a new musical direction that blends her old pop-harmony self with cutting-edge trip-hop instru- mentation, combining perfectly in the title track. "Velvet" kicks off with a decidedly Prodigy guitar riff and soars into a surreal blend of Janet's poppy lyrics and the crunching violin of prodigy Vanessa Mae. From this song, one can see that by "Velvet Rope," Janet means to take us to the restricted areas of her mind, body and soul, while inviting us to do the same for ourselves. And that's exactly what she does. Taking the listener on a trip-pop journey beyond her velvet rope, Janet continues the mood set by the open- er with the one-two-three punch of "You," a rocking wake-up call for being yourself; the first single "Got 'Til It's Gone," a funky collaboration with Q-Tip and Joni Mitchell; and "My Need," a deceptively happy melding of "Love Hangover" and "You're All I Need To Get By." But all this tripping hasn't completely overwhelmed the Janet we all know and love, as is evident on the album's guaranteed dance hit, "Together Again." A poetic postcard to those she's lost to AIDS mas- querading as a RuPaul-esque "Everybody say love!" anthem, the song keeps it together artistically through five booty-shaking minutes. Another cut guaranteed to make it big is Janet's cover of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's The Night." Keeping the original's ode-to-deflowering lyrics, Janet lovingly croons to a woman, which could possibly cre- ate a hoopla and definitely creates an enticing lesson in the art of seduction. Seduction is merely the prelude to the shockingly great "Rope Burn:' as she finds her true self as she finds herself gently tied up. On this stellar song, she even makes S&M seem inspirational. Jackson kicks inspiration aside and just lets loose with longing on the conventional yet intoxicating quiet storm "I Get So Lonely." Janet also sidesteps insinuation and goes directly for the jugular on the explicit, tempo-shifting, woman- scorned rocker "What About in which i G she's walking along the beach with an apologetic lover as thoughts like "What about the times you hit my face?" and even more explicit accu- sations run through her mind. Who's that thinking those nasty thoughts? Nasty girl Janet Jackson, of course. And being nasty suits Janet - and listeners -just fine on the trip- py, sexy, inspirational, invigorating and impossibly seductive "The Velvet Rope." Beyond Janet's "Velvet Rope" lies a place where she may think nasty, act nasty or even eat that nasty food - but no matter how nasty Miss Jackson gets, I'll be right there waiting. Who's jamming to her nasty grooves? That would be me. -- Bryan Laik The Bouncing Souls The Bouncing Souls Epitaph Records Twenty-six minutes of fury captured in sixteen songs. That's the best way to describe the new, self- titled release from the Bouncing Souls. From the first adrenaline-injected track, "Cracked," all the way through to the record's conclusion, the Souls rip through an intense program of first-rate East Coast punk rock. A new record deal with Epitaph may finally draw some attention to the self-proclaimed "most touring band in punk rock." Certainly, their live shows are not to be missed. An appearance at St. Andrew's Hall on Oct. 24 should be sufficient proof of their prowess on stage. What energy doesn't come across on record pours forth in volumes when the Souls play a live gig. If seeing The Who was like watching a "piece of pure raw energy," then the Bouncing Souls have managed to capture that excitement and take it to punk rockers across the nation. Full of up-tempo tracks suitable for a crowd full of raised fists and chanting fans, two super-charged melodies stand out on "The Bouncing Souls." "East Coast! Fuck You!:' the Soul's glorious anthem of East Coast pride has a chorus that echoes its title and is guaranteed to piss off any parental unit within range of the CD player. With a reputation for scamming free meals while on tour, the Soul's sense of humor shines through on "Shark Attack," a song that discusses the band's freeloading. The lyrical brilliance of "Sha Attack" can be summed up in a few short lin . "Shark Attack! Shark Attack! J Quarter Pounder; and Big Macs! / Bouncing Souls are on your block / First we eat and then we rock! / Close your windows! Lock your doors / We like food better when its yours!" The track also includes guest appearances by Joe Escalante and Warren Fitzgerald of The Vandals. Hailing from New Jersey, The Bouncing Souls have been through Detroit several times in the past year, opening foi- the Descendents and Face to Facr, to name two of their more memorable appearance~ Most recently, though, they came into town on t . day-long Warped Tour, when it rolled into Pine Knob on July 23. The Souls held down a slot on one of.the, main stages in "competition" with bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Suicide Machines, Reel Big Fish and Social Distortion. Of the three Bouncing Souls records in existence, "The Bouncing Souls" is the most consistent effort to date. One track aside ("The Toilet Song"), the album maintains its intensity. speed and power throughout its entire running time. An instrumental track, "Th Screamer" adds the Hammond Organ stylingsW Ronny King to the mix, which is a welcome break from the power chord punk rock that characterizes the rest of the album. I can recommend their other two releases just as highly as I do this one. Both on BYO, records, "The Good, The Bad and the Argyle" and "Maniacal Laughter" will rock your world just as much as "The Bouncing Souls." Now on tour with labelmates The Pietasters, the Souls are coming to a theatre near you, namely St. Andrew's Hall. Hear the new record as it was mecnit to be heard: live. Take a car, bus, train, bicycle, trie ce or hijack some poor passing motorist if need be. Just be sure to make it to Detroit on Friday. -Gabe Fajuri Her first name ain't baby - it's Janet, and she's one nasty girl. I Punk rockers The Bouncing Souls will eat your food and piss off your parents. Hirshfield shares her cure for common poems* By Jason Boog For the Daily For anyone who sees modern poetry as a personal, vague, and unreachable form of writing, poet Jane Hirshfield is the perfect remedy. This evening at 8 p.m., Hirshfield will bring an imposing scope and energy for poetry to Ann Arbor P in a discussion of her two new books, "Nine J Gates" and "The Lives of the Heart." Hirshfield, whose awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, has also writ- ten three other books of or about poetry, edited and translated anthologies of poetry, and has been published in "The New Yorker," "The Atlantic" and "The Nation." Hirshfield is an ideal voice for a Jai modern poetry. "The great human joy is to lead a known life and an interconnected life," Hirshfield told The San Diego Reader in a recent interview, explaining that "poet- ry, and the attentiveness that comes with reading or writing it brings that kind of knowledge (to) me." "Nine EV I E W Gates" is a col- lection of essays ne Hirshfield reflecting her Tonight at 8 lifelong connec- Shaman Drum tion and mastery Free of poetry. The book intends to explore poetry's "mode of comprehension," an important subject for readers and composers of poetry. Hirshfield moves slowly through the ini- tial essays, carefully defining the basic tools of poetry, from narrative style to the poet's voice. Each explanation comes with a gener- ous sampling of illustrative poems by poets from around the globe. From these simple beginnings, the essays move to more subtle topics, from a discussion of influence and historical poetic development to an essay on the work of translating poetry. Throughout this book, Hirshfield reinforces the need for the reader or writer to focus entirely to achieve the "attentiveness" necessary for poetry. She writes, "poems do not make appoint- ments with their subjects - they stalk them, keeping their distance, looking slightly off to one side." Finally, "Nine Gates" explores the very creation of the elusive poetry described above. Hirshfield calls this act "facing the lion,' and cries for modern poets to carry on the quest to "look at what is difficult to see; to press ... into the realms of sor- row, chaos, anger; to seek out the places where madness and imagination meet." This powerful challenge is met in Hirshfield's own poetry, as her other book, "The Lives of the Heart" neatly proves. In the title poem, she continues her poetic study on a human level, writ- ing, "Each (heart) opens and closes, closes and opens the heavy gate-violent, serene, consenting, suffering it all." From that insight, Hirshfield explores the human heart's interaction with the many states of life, from her own experi- ence and and from the experiences of those around her. The book holds a particular focus on certain images and themes; for example, the fearful "lions" of pain and desire, sensual fruits, and the gates leading tar knowledge. This last image is most cen- tral, as she writes in the poen'r "Of Durable Kindness," "Not that (a) huge gate swung open, but (turn) the pin of the hinge" This delicate balance of elusive insights is where Hirshfield thrives. Her study moves between genei conclusions about human experience like, "changed glass that is like the heart after much pain," and very subjective study, "there is more and more I tell no one, strangers nor loves. This slips into the heart without hurry, as if it had never been. Overall, Hirshfield's poetry is most powerful in her shortest pieces, like "Late Prayer." Here we see Hirshfieicl's gentle prose compacted to a power$ sentence, and under her careful direction the reader can see with a new."attentive- ness" the beauty of experience's balance. Hirshfield calls together all the pain-and happiness examined in the book in a sen- tence. "Look: In the iron bucket, a single nail, a single ruby - all the heavens and hells. They rattle in the heart and make one sound." That sound is recorded in poetry,-a*- Jane Hirshfield proves in her two books just how well she hears. WIN $1,OOOj SWE STAKES si'e If You... r Have a 3.00 or higher GPA " Are a currently enrolled college student (two- or four-year college) * Send us the form below We wil . . . e Draw one name each week for 4 weeks to win $1,000 * Verify your GPA if you win oW Keep your name in each week's drawing Congratulations, Lynda Ludwig, a 0 Send you information senior at Central Michigan University. about legal educational She's the first week's $1,000 winner! opportunities 1 Name ____o,-a vim r I I ii