10B - The Michigan Daily - Weekend, etc. Magazine - Thursday, December 6, 2001 Immir- - - - Amlir- --AMMML- U - w U, 'Survivor' has started its downfall into reality TV hell' The Michigan Daily - Weekend, etc. Magazine - Christmas albums bring holiday cheer to rec After a two-week hiatus, your stool pigeon has returned to quench your voyeuristic thirsts for reality TV Amazing how quickly the world can change; since the last column the world lost a Beatle, Harry Potter broke box office records (even if the spell only lasted two weeks) and CBS won the coveted November sweeps. The one invariable was "Survivor: Africa" and its abiding downfall, not just in the rat- ings, but also in the program's repeti- tious events. Two weeks ago, while all of us were feasting on turkey and stuffing, the tribes finally merged into one fiber tribe, dubbed "Moto Maji." The transi- tion was relatively painless, with little conflict between the old Boran and Samburu rivals. The Immunity Challenge had them standing on a log for several hours in the extreme heat. The difficulty wasn't so much standing rather than avoiding any kind of movement. Contestants were attached to a rope connected to a bucket of water - move and the water spills on the eliminated contestant. It came down to Clarence and Teresa, with the flight attendant winning an all too important game of paper-rock-scis- sors for immunity. The two agreed while on the logs to not vote for one another. The promise did little to avoid Clarence's demise as he was voted out 8-2. Lex received the other two votes at Tribal Council, fueling the lanky punk rocker to "smoke out" those who had voted for him. The lone Michigan resident may have been ousted but you could be seeing more of him, a lot more of him. "Playgirl or underwear modeling or anything like that ... I would definite- ly consider it," the Hillsdale grad said of his future. Please keep your clothes on big guy. CBS decided once again to air an episode of rehashed clips with a promise of "new" footage. Viewers were treated to nothing more than a mind-numbing halftime show with lit- tle insight or ingenuity. Last year, CBS whipped up the recap episode to push the finale back to the .first week of May sweeps, understandable. Why this time? Delaying the inevitable less than stellar conclusion to the lacklus- ter third installment of the dying real- ity show I suppose. Tonight the show will get back to work. I'm predicting contestants will fight, someone will win a reward challenge taking them to an African village, someone will win immunity and finally someone will be voted off. This week the process of elimina- tion and psychic abilities suggest a Samburu member will be asked to leave. At this juncture the old Boran tribe has five remaining competitors (Ethan, Tom, Lex, Kelly and Kim J) compared to old Samburu's four-per- son roster (Frank, Teresa, Brandon and Kim P). It's getting time where people will boot the most threatening person. That person is indisputably Frank. Due to the impending holiday break, this column and its respective writer will miss out on the four episodes that will air during the allot- ted time frame. When we have all returned from our indulgent vaca- tions, "Survivor" will be back for its Members of the newly formed Moto Maji smile as Jeff Probst looks on. finale. It's not March but it's never too early to pick the final four. Ethan seems the obvious choice to make it to the last episode. He has kept rather quiet, yet can be an assertive leader when need be. Big Tom, goat farmer extraordinaire, might wobble to the closing stages simply because he poses the least threat physically of the nine remaining survivors. The strongest female at this point in the game is indubitably Kelly. The Duke grad is in an advantageous position with her Boran roots, plus she has been more than forthcoming to her fellow castaways the first 21 days. My shocker pick to reach the final four is Kim Powers. If one of the old Samburu members has a chance at the $1 million prize it's her. Keeping a low profile and physical prowess make her more likely than Frank, Teresa or Brandon to reach the last episode. "Survivor: Africa" is at the halfway point, but it isn't too late to turn the show around. Executive producer Mark Burnett may have changes in the game to spice it up, but the reality program is in need of more human drama, not melodrama. Time will tell. I hemp pukka silver coco visit us on the web at reallycooljewelryTcorn By Keith N. Dusenberry Daily Arts Writer Somewhere around the time that Christmas became commercialized, musicians got branded. Not branded in a cattle sense word (although with today's rampant desire to sub-genre-ize everything, music critics might as well carry hot pokers), but branded in the Levi's/Marlboro/Disney sense - as a line of similar, reliable goods coming from a single source. The problem is that the idea of branding transferred to the music world, but the parts involv- ing "reliable" and "good" unfortunate- ly did not. Nowhere is this more appar- ent than in the annual debacle known as the Holiday Shopping Music Release Rush (HSMRR). The HSMRR usually renders itself on the shelves in the form of two high- profit packages: The Christmas CD and the box set. The Christmas CD cat- egory can then be further divided into three types: An artist doing old favorites, an artist performing a mix of old favorites and their own new Christmas songs, or a various artists collection. The album of old favorites covered by a single artist is usually the safest way to go for a singer looking to crack the bag it, tag it, throw it under the tree market. Everyone gets in on this racket, even Jewish girls from Brooklyn like Barbara Streisand. She released one Christmas CD in 1967, and now she's at it again this year! Someone tell her Rabbi! Then there are the old favorite/new song hybrid albums. These are general- ly produced by the popular groups of the day and rely upon branding as much as the old-favorite-only CDs do. This is, of course, because the new Christmas "originals" finding their debuts on these CDs rarely get any notice. Remember the New Kids on the Block's "Funky, Funky, X-Mas?" I didn't think so. It's because these songs are almost always hideous, taking a given band's usual sound and adding some sleigh bells and lyrical references to snow or Santa Claus. The results almost invariably border on the unlis- tenable. Both of these above mentioned Christmas CD approaches bank on the selling power of musical brand names, with record companies figuring that since (Christmas celebrating) people like Christmas songs and they like pop- ular music (otherwise, it wouldn't be popular) - why not combine the two? In the process, record labels get to avoid royalty and publishing fees by choosing Christmas "favorites" now in the public domain, pay little to the stu- dio musicians who provide the back- ground music because everybody knows these songs and can knock them out inone or two takes; and then let the "star" waltz in, lay down the vocals in a couple of cost-effective hours in the studio, pose wearing a Santa hat for the album cover and wait for the checks to come in. While record companies can rest assured that an artist's fans will buy a Christmas CD done by that particular artist, there exists little chance that non-fans or casual listeners of that musician will give their Christmas CD a second look. This, of course, has to do with the branding - everyone has a favorite brand and since people don't need very many Christmas CDs, they will invariably stick with their top two or three brands. Good luck getting a Colegate person to try Mentadent's special "holiday peppermint" flavor toothpaste, or a Marlboro man to check out Lucky Strike's "full flavored fruit cake" 100s. But maybe, just maybe, consumers will allow those other brands into their homes in a trial size as part of a compilation. Enter the third option: The various artists Christmas collec- tion. They are all over the holiday releases this, and every, year. VH1 has an '80s Christmas collection out, MTV's TRL Christmas is lining shelves and catching pine needles, and Playboy magazine's new Latin Jazz Christmas promises a "Not So Silent Night." Sure, consumers might only know and trust three or four of the brands (or rather, bands) on any one of these collections, but wouldn't it be fun to hear that hip-hop take on Enjo luury& svins inourawad wnnig vilaswit spce or te DolegCOUN T O LF _ I CITRUS BOWL SPECIALF Receive an ADDITIONAL OFF z ew each villa night when you present your Bowl G S2bedroom sleeps 6.3 bedroom sleeps8 0 a r nt'I (bad onb peoe in a i bdroonla) " 83bedroom - zbaths * kitchen - pool A - spa - tennis - game room - exercise room HOLIDAY VILLA miri1mII -[7 n II TW7o THElME PARK TICKETS Build your own vacation to1 Ait your desires & ibudgt Check rates and reserve online or cll "Silent Night" or a death metal flare applied to "White Christmas?" Sure it would. And while they're at it, shoppers figure they might as well listen to the other artists on the col- lection that they hadn't heard of before, like the ones who do the oh so hilarious ska version of "0 Holy Night" or the rap-core cover of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Advertising costs increase around the holiday season, and what better way for record labels to cover that cost than to make you pay to hear the advertisements? If customers like what they hear from the bands on the compilation, they might even go out and buy the artists' regular albums! Hopefully, in the eyes of the busi- ness, the secular albums that the hol- iday shoppers will gravitate toward are the newly released box sets on shelved just in time for the holidays. With box sets, costs are low and price tags are high. (Hey, there are never before seen photos of Elvis exercis- ing in that box set! Definitely worth the $70.) Here's the secret formula for these high-priced holiday gim- micks: Take the old stock of CDs by some "classic" band, dig up a couple "rare" (read: Not good enough the first time around) tracks, have some- one write ridiculously long and hyperbolically praise-filled liner notes, repackage everything in a "deluxe" cardboard box and sell it for no less than $50. Mark my words: The future holds a Britney Spears Christmas CD (likely of the old favorites/new would-be- holiday-hits variety) and a Guns N' Roses box set (Axl has to eat some- how). Personally, I'm holding out for James Brown's Funky Kwanzaa and Bob Dylan's Hanukkah Hits. "Registers ring, are you listenin'? At the labels, money's glistenin'..." 1004 padre boulevard sunchase mall south padre island. texas 78597 . (956) 761-8477 Never miss a hit.Liberty Street Ann Arbor's alternative video store 119 East Liberty 663-3121 Sun-Thurs 10am-mid . Fri-Sat 10am-1am Video. 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