Etta James recording in the Chess studio, early 1960s

 

Phil Chess, Etta James, and Ralph Bass! A Chess Records moment!

"Oppenheimer" by Christopher Nolan (2023)

This movie was so hugely advertised and pumped up (together with its competition, "Barbie") that it was inevitable that it will eventually leave me cold. Critics claimed it was masterpiece and the best movie of 21th century so far - well, that was really hard to live up to. I genuinely expected a cinematic equivalent of a burning bush, something nobody has ever seen before, etc, etc - at the end it was just a long, sprawling saga clumsily divided in two parts that could easily have been two different movies.

The first part of the movie is all about  J. Robert Oppenheimer and how he was a flawed genius, who got recruited by US government to develop an atomic bomb before somebody else does. After the war, he enjoys hero reputation which is eventually demolished during Cold War and anti-communists witch hunt hearings. This would be a story in a nutshell and although I must be honest and admit that everything was done professionally, with bug budget, top cast, etc, it left me completely cold and uninvolved. The best thing about it was that I did not feel 3 hours in the cinema and the time actually flew by quite nicely. 

In retrospective now, a week later, I wonder why it left me so unmoved. A friend who was with me saw "Barbie" first and she thinks that it was far more interesting, thought-provoking and provocative. Normally, I love these actors and even gladly went to spend 3 hours in the cinema, fully knowing it will probably destroy my bladder (it didn't). Perhaps its all this press, claiming its phenomenal and "watch out for that particular scene that leaves everybody traumatised" - well, no, I was not traumatised, in fact, I was not even moved. I thought it was overlong, sprawling and too ambitious in its scope and desire to cover too much in one movie. What bothers me the most is - 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are well known historical facts and only this new generation Z is the one who is constantly surprised by everything, like the world had started in 1997. - to them, these youngsters, this might be traumatising and thought-provoking movie about something they have never heard before but to the rest of us this is basically re-telling of a something we have all learned in the school. I mean, is there a person in the world who does not know how did WW2 end? As for myself, I have even visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki + saw the museums with my own eyes, so no, this was neither traumatising nor new nor something I did not expect. To me it was very much like if somebody made a movie about WW2 and kids got all shocked and surprised - well yes, this is historical fact and no amount of your outrage and offenses can erase it. 

Tribute to the cult rock album sans original performer

Thanks to wonders of youtube I stumbled upon something very dear and close to my heart - a concert tribute to legendary all-star Croatian LP album from 1973. The album itself was a debut studio showcase for than 23 year old Josipa Lisac who was surrounded by the cream of local musicians and it is now considered to be one of undisputed masterpiece of Croatian rock music, with generations after generations of new listeners discovering it trough the years. During my teenage years, lady herself would very rarely perform these old songs, since she had tons of new material and was happy introducing new songs that her partner Karlo Metikoš tailored specifically for her - I clearly remember even back than, in 1982 people would complain that her voice is now not what it was before and that she changed her style too much from the original recordings - fast forward to 2023 and she had metamorphosed so much into almost unrecognisable artist than nowadays her concert performances hardly resemble those old recordings - at this point she is all about jazzy improvisations and experimentations that alienate quite a lot of people, including (dare I say it?) me as I grew up with original recordings and loved every note.

On June 10th, 2023 there was a very interesting performance tribute to this whole album by a young local band, led by vocalist Lucija Pećar Končić and her guys - they performed a complete album in chronological order and in original arrangements, as they were recorded in 1973. Josipa Lisac herself was amused and flattered that her masterpiece (now 50 years old) is apparently capable to exist on its own without her, but she was not present or performing in the concert - it was all about the music, not about her. I knew vaguely about this but was not expecting to find it available on youtube and when I discovered it today, I must say that I was overjoyed. After all, I know every single word and every note by heart.

 

One interesting thing that struck me immediately is "oh, they really followed original recording note by note" - by now we are so accustomed that Lisac is constantly experimenting with new versions that it comes as a shock to hear album the way it was. At first i wasn't even sure what I think about it - I thought, well, copying original note by note can be done by anybody, right? Even I could do exactly what the singer Lucija Pećar Končić was doing here, just give me a microphone and a spotlight, I know every word and every single ornamentation. And this is one of the reasons why Lisac is such a celebrated singer, because she never rested on her laurels but was constantly changing and evolving (to the point that now she is singer's singer but too complicated for wide audience). But after a while I got so carried away with the music, that I didn't care anymore - I was singing along from the top of my lungs and decided that even in this, obviously well-studied version, its simply a labour of love from musicians who love, admire and know this music - its a joy to see all of them so young and so clearly in love with music. And it confused me a bit, since I never really liked how Lisac herself was twisting original recordings into something unrecognisable but now when I see it performed exactly as it was my reaction was "hm, that is too easy". In any case, this live concert made me very happy and I have not only shared it around with everybody but also listening right now, its the soundtrack of my life and I can only hope that in the future there will be more of similar tribute concerts to this fabulous music and this wonderful lady.

   

Sinéad O'Connor 1966-2023

Just watched interesting documentary "Nothing Compares" directed by Kathryn Ferguson, who could not possibly known that this 2022 film will just a year later serve as farewell to famous Irish singer. the documentary itself was very interesting although it kind of ends around mid 1990s when O'Connor gleefully destroyed her pop stardom and famously alienated half of the world with her highly publicised opinions. So there is nothing about her fall from grace and (perhaps fittingly) its a celebratory documentary, focused on how Sinéad became world superstar but almost nothing is said about her last years - that might be focus of another documentary. A large elephant in the room was the fact that Prince's estate strictly forbid use of his song - even he was alive, he was apparently not a fan of O'Connor - so its a bit obvious that documentary is built around the singer but can't play the song that made her a world superstar. 

Her death came as a shock but not as a surprise - I was only surprised that she was actually so young and actually just a few years older than me. I vividly remember the times when she shoot to fame in the early 1990s, the beautiful new girl on the block and how everything about her was so unusual - she was not smiling, she looked focused and angry, her bald head making that beautiful face even more striking. Her music did not really appeal to me back than, but I found her intriguing - I might enjoy her music more today, in a retrospect. What was clear from the start was the O'Connor had strong opinions and was indeed courting the controversy, I would even say enjoying attention she got from the media - but constant anger brings you only so far and it was eventually self-destructive, as conservatives turned against her. Yes, in hindsight, whatever she said about Catholic church eventually came out as truth but in my opinion she fought with the windmills and it turned a lot of people against her. I can't think of any current pop star who would so knowingly sabotage their own success with bold statements like O'Connor. 

One thing that documentary focuses on is her perpetual accusations - be it church, Magdalene asylum, her own mother or music industry. While in her TV interviews O'Connor comes on like a very charming and jovial, in print it sounds as she was constantly angry. Right now everybody talks about her as being bipolar or having mental issues, but this is how real artists are - they must have something that fires them up - I don't see O'Connor as more mad than the next person on the street. What bothers me just a bit is that constant obsession with the past and wounds that should have been left behind - we can't forever blame our parents for our own lives and at certain point one must accept his own responsibility. There is also a certain public hypocrisy where now everybody seems to praise her, but in fact she was almost blacklisted while she was alive. It confirms again that old motto that the best loved artists are dead ones.