8 --The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 4, 2001 The Bright Midnight Sampler, The Doors; Bright Midnight Records By Neal Pais Daily Arts Writer America's favorite poets have finally returned to combat the utter garbage that today's listeners subscribe to. The Doors, lacking only the late, great Jim Morrison, have established their own Internet-only record label and released a collection of previously unreleased live tracks taken from gigs around the country. Leave it to legends like these to come teach today's disgusting little teenyboppers and crappy hip-hoppers what real music is. The quality of '60s psychedelic music may never be replicated again yet The Bright Midnight Sampler cer- tainly brings that flavor back to a gen- eration lacking in anything truly revolutionary. To hear the Lizard King's voice, back from the grave, is pure bliss. Jim Morrison's electric vocals evoke emotions like none other; coupled with the brilliant instrumental support of John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Rob Krieger, the tracks induce something just short of an audi- tory orgasm. Serenading fans in New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Los Angeles, The Doors manufacture a brand of rock held entirely to themselves. Singing of his own hedonistic excesses while conveying the tumult of the times he lived in, the shamanic Jim Morrison howls at his shows with the intensity of a man possessed. Many of the songs have mystical undertones to them. Certainly influenced by an array of psychedelics but nonetheless a genius in every sense, Morrison creates pure magic from simple lyrical repetitions and unadorned instrumental arrange- ments. The Sampler begins with perhaps the most celebrated Doors single - "Light Blow - The Motion Picture Soundtrack, Various Artists; EMD/Virgin By Sonya Suthorland Daily Arts Writer 0 If a good film moves you emo- tionally and a good album alters your mood, then the music from the motion picture "Blow" has achieved the pinnacle of success as a sound- track. Taken either as a musical accesso- ry to the movie or as an album standing alone, each track works to unite a mind frame with a moment in time. The potpourri of '70s theme9 music, stretching from a funk vibe to the early days of glam rock, pro- vide enough auditory stimulation to keep the CD on repeat for hours. The blazing rock riffs of Ram Jam's "Black Betty" juxtaposed with Manfred Mann's social commentary, on temptation, "Blinded by the Light," is the perfect catalyst for that ride into the post-love, happiness! and bullshit decade. For every mood, high or low, lost love to elation, this soundtrack is an ideal melodic accompaniment, dropping the listen- er into a different dimension alto- gether. With the works of Cream, KC and the Sunshine Band and Bob Dylan to name a few featured artists, Blow does more than supply background noise to a film or party. It completes any scene, even those devoid of drugs. Grade: A Grade: A+ It is hard to define Ladytron, and their new release 604 clarifies nothing other than their predilection with bewilderment. Perhaps Maude Lebowski could shed some light, call- ing it Techno-Pop, her face contorting into an impatient glower of disgust, recalling Autobahn's pathetic whine. Ladytron dresses in black jump- suits. They pose for photographs in abandoned elevators and escalators with arms folded sternly, militaristic, eyes staring directly at the camera, accusatory. They are frightening. Sometimes, they sing in different lan- guages. They look more like terrorists than musicians. Like futuristic authoritarians blinking on and off of pixelized black and white monitors to bark orders to an enslaved dystopian community. They sound this way too. The reliance on organs, drum machines and synthesizers recalls the buoyant, optimistic experimentalism of early Talking Heads, the Human League or Devo. Two female singers alternate singing about love (of course), capitalism, consumerism, materialism and the encroaching gen- trification and docilization of the world's populace. And they sing about it happily, chirping. The album opens with the terse, piercing "Mu-tron." The song acts as a collage of sounds, a beacon of what is to come in the next hour of music, complete with undulating synth-riffs, bursts of feedback, fuzzy electro-bass and grating, garage-esque drumming. It is followed by "Discotraxx," a song so ridiculously paced that it can only serve as entertainment to DJs who will play it and watch the baffled dancers attempt to twist their limbs and gyrate their hips in sync with the rapid rhythm. "The Way That I Found You" is alternately haunting and play- ful, intoning with such unintelligible comments as, "Sat in the crowd watching the women's tennis/That was the way was the way that I found you." "Playgirl," "I'm With the Pilots," and "He Took Her to a Movie" are undeniably pop songs, but are imbed- ded with such melancholy that they could accompany a marathon night of dancing or a night spent enraptured in self-loathing, drowning your sorrows as you peer into the sterile, cold mar- tini in your hand. That is possibly the only way to identify 604, shaking your head in bafflement. It is pop. It* is depressing. It is depressing-pop, and surprisingly, it works, Grade: B 0 smanow Advertising Production Associates needed Computerized layout assistant " Scanning coordinator Archiving assistant i Salaried positions Knowledge of Qua rkXpre 8-10 hours per week ss * Work study accepted 0 /.