(no subject)

1. Woo-hoo! Netflix picked up Lucifer, thank you Netflix. (I'm betting the foreign audience helped persuade them. Netflix does very well overseas. Fox is really just concerned with domestic advertising dollars. But Netflix could care less about advertisers, and is interested in subscription sells. Take that, evil advertising folks!

Broadcast television and basic cable television is advertising dictated. It's which shows the advertisers feel their key demographics watch that get renewed and they determine it based on market research.

Subscription television is different and takes more risks. It's better quality overall, as a result.
Because it targets a more intelligent audience base, and is not dictated by how many cars get sold.

Netflix is reviving the canceled Fox drama for a fourth season. The DC Entertainment series, which hails from Warner Bros. Television, was axed in May. An episode count for the new season has yet to be determined.

This isn't the first time the streaming giant has picked up a canceled show from the Time Warner-owned studio. Netflix previously revived Warner Horizon's Longmire after A&E axed the series. The two companies are also in business together on Kiernan Shipka starrer Sabrina, a Riverdale offshoot. (Riverdale, meanwhile, remains a monster hit on Netflix, which has SVOD rights after originals air on The CW.)

This is great news. It means the show can step away from being the light procedural that Fox kept pushing it to be, and go darker and gritter and closer to it's comic roots. That's what happened with Longmire, it got a lot more interesting.

Hmm...I'm beginning to think I should ax network television. I'm growing weary of commercials and networks catering to Neilsen Ratings and Ad dollars.

Anyhow a spot of good news in an otherwise depressing week.

2. Mother: I've started reading James Paterson and President Clinton's new novel, it is actually written by Paterson this round, not by a committee.
Me: And...
Mother: It's awful.
Me: hardly surprising. Paterson can't write. As Stephen King recently stated, an atrocious writer who is insanely successful. (Proving 90% of Americans aren't readers. They aren't. They skim. I know, I communicate by writing with folks and I can tell that they failed reading comprehension. Example?

Me: Please provide an ICE ("independent cost estimate") when you get a chance.
Project Manager: Sorry for being dense but what is an ICE?
Me: (headdesk)

The title of the book is The President is Lost or Missing or something like that. And all I could think of when I saw the title is..."if only".

Music mostly...who sings the song best

1. The absurd and somewhat depressing state of the United States continues...or what happens when you let Capitalism go insane or the Evils of Capitalism Personified.

Co-worker: They're voting on splitting California into Three States
Me: Really?
Co-worker: No, I'm serious.
Me: So, what...
Co-worker: Northern California, Mid, and Southern.
Me: In other words the state of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego? Why because they can't get along?
Co-worker: Pretty much.
Me: Oh just what we need more states. I can see Texas doing it...it's huge, but California? Really? Crazy people. I wish we could just take the New York through Maine and join Canada, just defect and become another territory of Canada.
Co-worker: I'm still looking into buying my own island.
Me: At this rate you might want to investigate a planet, islands aren't quite far enough away.

Anybody else miss the days when we didn't know this stuff?

2. Who Sings the Song Better? - the original song-writer, or someone else? (Answer: Depends on the song and the singers involved.)

Been playing about with music this week. And decided to play the following folks music against each other...or just playing around with them.

Reason? I'm writing a cotemporary and rather subversive romance novel about a female POC veternan whose mother was a hit R&B singer, and her ex-fiancee who thinks she is dead, was a singer. She loves doing drunken karaoke to relieve stress. And I've researching songs they'd sing in a contest -- cheesy karaoke numbers and hit rock songs. In particular songs that would lend themselves to the plot and act as metaphors for the character's inner lives and relationships.

A. I Will Always Love You - Whitney Houston vs. Dolly Parton. (Warning -- this is an earworm song. It will stay in your head for days. I made the mistake of listening to it several times today and could not get it out of my head.)

Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" vs. Dolly Parton I Will Always Love You.

And...sorry, no contest, Whitney by a mile. Dolly sings and talks through her nose. And I don't think she can sing that well...her voice breaks when it reaches a certain octave and squeaks, hurting my ears like someone scraping a knife down a chalk board. I can't listen to her sing "I Will Always Love You" -- it's completely outside her range. I want to run away with fingers plugged in my ears. She wrote that for a voice like Whitney's not her own. She's best on songs like "9 to 5". Her voice just can't go that high without cracking. Dolly isn't an opera singer.

As an aside? I do not understand the appeal of the folksy nasal twang voice. She also talks half the song -- because she has a very narrow vocal range. Her vocal range is just too limited. To pull off I Will Always Love You, you have to have the voice of an opera singer. Lady Gaga could probably pull it off. Dolly Parton is not an opera singer, she's a country music folk singer.

For a long time I disliked country music, because everyone sounded like they were singing through their nose and had no vocal range. They'd hit the high note, and I'd want to switch channels (radio channels). Then along came Johnny Cash, and few folks who could sing without making me cringe, and I changed my mind. My mother feels the same way -- she also despised country music until she watched Nashville and realized, wait, people can sing country without sounding like they caught a cold. (I figured it out in college and law school -- when I got a hold of some better singers.)

Whitney on the other hand could belt it out of the park. She could go deep and high, she has a rich, deep, beautiful voice. And she's beautiful singing it. Dolly is a lovely person or so I've heard, but I don't feel it in her voice. It's folksy and quaint, and oh gee-shucks, but ugh. No. Stick to the folksy songs.

This is subjective personal taste of course. I mean it depends on what you like. I know someone who loves Dolly and hates Whitney. (SMH). It's like arguing which is better -- Prince or Michael Jackson (which I'll get to shortly) or Spike or Angel (and let's not do that again). Do you like pure soulful sound, that rings of gospel and a voice that holds an octave that you'd hear in a Cathedrale, or nasal folksy twang that you might hear some night around a rodeo camp fire?

Sort of like do you hear Yanni or Laurel.

B) I Will Survive -- also an earworm song.

Also re-discovered Gloria Gaynor who originated the hit I Will Survive. Who isn't quite as dramatic as Whitney and never had the presence of either Whitney or Diana Ross. But I Will Survive is a better song than I Will Always Love You. Has a bit more too it.

Weirdly, Lucifer did a better rendition of it. Also, it makes a great duet.

Although KD Lang is not at all bad...and may be better, she has more range and an interesting interpretation. Still? My favorite is the Tom Ellis and guest star duet...that was good.

C) Hunting a decent duet from the 1990s is not as easy as it looks..or the 80s for that matter

No Doubt's Don't Speak which is rather cool and has a great sound, it mixes two different sounds and works rather well, and I love the lyrics, but the video is crap. Gwen Stefani is the lead singer by the way.

Glee does a better job with it actually, as a duet no less. --

Pit this against, Don Henley and Patti Smith's Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough -- I was looking for duets, which by the way are hard to find. There just aren't that many good duets particularly for the 1990s. [Also No Doubt's Don't Speak isn't a duet.] Patti Smith's song actually has been done as a solo number and a duet. But it works better as a duet in my opinion.

I like this one, nice blend of voices. And good video. Also, I am admittedly a fan of Don Henley. (Yes, I liked the Eagles. Had a friend in college who adored The Eagles, Jimmy Buffet and the Go-Gos. I could understand the Eagles, the other two...eh, they are okay.)

And Kenny Rodgers and Sheena Easton's We've Got Tonight" -- I prefer the male country singers to the female because they aren't as twangy and don't sing through their nose. Also their voices don't squeak. Sheena Easton, an old 1980s pop singer (who I actually prefer to today's pop stars. Taylor Swift also squeaks and makes my ears hurt).
Oh, for the curious, here's the 2012 version of the same duet, with the singers much older We've Got Tonight in 2012. I think his voice held up slightly better than hers. (Kenny Rodgers reminds me of Johnny Cash -- and Sand Sheff, he tells stories with songs -- takes you inside different people he meets along the way.) But of the two songs...I prefer the video and the vocal mix of Patti Smith and Don Henley...their voices meld better and the lyrics have more depth and the play on metaphor grabs me more.

D.) When Doves Cry -- Prince vs. well everyone else (Michael Jackson and Sam Perry)

Jumped over to Prince and The Revolution's classic hit When Doves Cry" -- which I think may make a good duet...oh look Michael Jackson and Prince actually did THAT.
(And it didn't work. Ugh. Michael Jackson can't sing that song correctly. Also it felt photoshopped, so not sure it is real.) But it does lend itself to a duet.

And this weird rendition of it by Sam Perry. I didn't really like it. Some of it is interesting, but a lot of it...felt like it lost bits of it.

E. Putting out Fires with Gasoline David Bowie vs. Tina Turner

David Bowie's classic "Putting Out Fire With Gasoline" from Cat People. Sung by Tina Turner and David Bowie -- sorry Tina, but David wins this contest by a mile. This song really has to be sung a certain way and in a certain voice. Bowie makes slow love to the words. His voice is almost a purr to begin with, low and husky, then he hits that impossible high octave. The range is astonishing. His voice seduces the ear and has a haunting echoing quality that Tina's doesn't quite possess. This unlike Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, is a song that needs to be sung by the songwriter, and seems to fit the original writer's voice best.

F. Live and Let Die Paul McCartney vs. Guns & Roses Axel Ross.

This takes me to Wings or Paul McCartney's classic Live and Let Die, lets give McCartney the credit he's due -- few have had as varied and lengthy a creative career as he has. And he's written with just about everyone. And has a wide range. Also his songs speak to the soul. But, Live and Let Die simply sounds better as sung by Guns & Roses, it requires that heavy metal, hard rocker, raspy, cigarette chocked vocalization, with the violence and rage of Axel Ross. McCartney sings it with piano, melodious, and almost too sweet, it doesn't have the raw, hard-lived edge that Ross provides. Nor does McCartney provide the hard driving electronic guitare. And he needs the special effects, Ross doesn't. Like Dolly's I Will Always Love You -- this song is sung far better by someone other than the original creator.


So to wrap up?

I Will Always Love You -- Whitney Houston (caveat - I don't like the song that much, it's overly sentimental and too much on the nose. I think Dolly's songs that are more story oriented and sing too her roots and vocal talents are far better. She wrote this for the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and it doesn't quite work. Whitney saves it, but mainly because the woman has an opera singer's vocal chords.)
I Will Survive? Tom Ellis Duet, although Gloria Gaynor is good too
Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough - Don Henley and Patti Smith as a duet
When Doves Cry - Prince (This is an amazing song and hard to sing well.)
Putting out Fires with Gasoline - David Bowie (Also an amazing song and impossible to sing well.)
Live and Let Die - Guns and Roses