December 2009 Archives

Gheorghe Zamfir – Zamfir (1980)

  • Posted on December 26, 2009 at 12:36 am
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If you’re old enough to remember the 80′s, you no doubt recall the commercial for “Zamfir, master of the pan flute”.  In case you don’t, here it is:

It’s one of those cheesy albums that always made me wonder what type of knucklehead would actually buy one.   Well here it is 20 years later and I am now the proud owner of a Zamfir album.  Which pretty much answers my own question as to what type of knucklehead would buy one of these.

There really isn’t a whole lot of my usually snarkiness that I can bring to this post.  Zamfir is certainly very good at what he does.  I personally don’t mind the pan flute, but the backing orchestra is a little over the top for my tastes.  The entire album sounds like the soundtrack to some kind of tragic love story.  Not exactly my kind of flick.

Zamfir has sold well over 100 million albums and has even received a medal from the Pope.  I don’t know exactly what a person has to do in order to qualify for a Papal medallion but I’m hoping that his Holiness is a regular reader of Vinyl from Hell and will perhaps consider me for a literary honor.  Although I’m probably still on the Pope’s naughty list after “the incident”.

Back in 2000, my future wife and I were strolling through the Vatican museum when I asked her to hold on to one of my cameras.  Like a total dweeb I was actually carrying three cameras.  A group of Japanese tourists even stopped to mock me.  Anyway, she who shall remain nameless, leaned over a case that contained a Bible from the 1400′s.  The camera that she was carrying for me smacked into the glass case and the sound echoed through the long hallway.  Fortunately, there was no damage but two security guards materialized from out of thin air and immediately assumed that we were attempted to smash the case.   After a rather tense couple of minutes, they determined that there was no harm done to the case and allowed us to go on our way.  It’s a topic that still isn’t mentioned in our home, 9 years later.  Apparently at the time, (her version) I displayed more concern for my camera lens than any legal consequences which might involve my aforementioned accomplice.  In my defense,  it was my favorite lens.  Sheesh!

But I digress.  If I may offer one criticism of Zamfir, it’s the artwork that he schleps from his website.  Now I admit that I don’t know much about art, but seriously, I could have done these and I got a “D” in 8th grade art class.  Check for yourself: http://www.gheorghezamfir.eu/purchase.html.

I do realize that in order to criticize something, one should be educated on the subject the he or she chooses to criticize.  But seriously, I just don’t see how these couldn’t have been done by some type of primate further down the evolutionary scale.  As evidence, I offer this link to a series of paintings done by a Cambodian elephant named Lucky: http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=42.  Not a whole lot of difference if you ask me.  But what do I know about culture?  I was almost thrown out of the Vatican.

Tracks:

Side One

Side Two

Continue reading Gheorghe Zamfir – Zamfir (1980)

Dallas Cowboys – Dallas Cowboys Christmas (1985)

  • Posted on December 22, 2009 at 12:49 am
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Is there anything more painful to witness than a narcissistic professional athlete (yes, I realize that was redundant) attempting to prove to us that he or she is good at everything they do?  There’s nothing new about athletes singing and as exhibit “A” I give you this video of Babe Ruth:

Or maybe something newer like exhibit “B”, this video of Carl Lewis torturing our National Anthem:

Truly awful stuff.

I don’t even remember where I picked up this week’s gem, probably because I was instantly traumatized knowing how awful it would be.  It was produced in 1985, right around the same time the Bears put out their Superbowl Shuffle:

There must have been something bad in the water back in ’85 to make these two teams want to abuse our auditory senses like this.  I’ve forgiven Walter Payton for the Shuffle not just because he was the greatest running back in history of the game, but because he was an incredibly kind man who should inspire the rest of us to be better people.

Now granted the Cowboys put together this album under the guise of charity,  but it is a truly awful piece of work.  Wouldn’t they have raised more money for charity if they all just pitched in a grand or two?  Perhaps saving their fans from having to endure this 40 minutes of pain.   This week’s post is really more of a public service.  Kids, if you ever become a professional athlete, please remember that no matter what your agent tells you, we don’t want to hear you sing.  So do us all a favor and STEP AWAY FROM THE MICROPHONE!!  Thank you!

Fortunately, the Cowboys only sing on the first two tracks so I might be over-reacting a bit.  They bring in some ringers for the remainder of the album and I wish that I could say that it gets better.  Chris Christian is a singer/song writer/producer who ends up crooning most of the songs including one with his wife.  Personally, I think he’s painful to listen to but he’s apparently well-regarded in Christian music circles.  If Christian music is your thing, then please disregard my opinion.

Do, however, check out “Twelve Days of Christmas”.  Unless your name is Bob and Doug McKenzie, you shouldn’t be attempting comedy by trying to make this song funny.  What we have in the end is a stunning example of what happens when athletes overestimate their vocal abilities.

I think as a matter of full disclosure I should mention that I’m a life-long Vikings fan.  I was 12 years old in 1975 when Roger Staubach hit Drew Pearson with the infamous “Hail Mary” that denied what was arguably the best Vikings team ever from the Super Bowl.  I don’t remember much about being 12, but I remember that game.  Do I hate the Cowboys?  Sure I do.  I rank them just below the NY Yankees in the list of teams that I can’t stand.  But my petty frustrations of watching the Vikings blow another one year in and year out aren’t what this is all about.  The point here is this:  If we keep putting these morons on a pedestal, they’ll keep thinking that we actually enjoy listening to crap like this.  So next time Shaq thinks that we want to listen to his rhymes, just say “no”.

In the name of fairness, somewhere in my vast vinyl collection is a copy of The Minnesota Vikings Sing.  I’m not making that up.  I’ve never listened to it because quite frankly, it scares me and there’s a strong possibility that it may be even worse than this Cowboys album.  When I can manage to locate it, I promise to post it here and ridicule it with all of the zest that I’ve dedicated to ripping this LP.

Tracks:

Side One

Side Two

Continue reading Dallas Cowboys – Dallas Cowboys Christmas (1985)