bellcurve

It's an ugly baby.

I'm watching some old episodes of Port Charles while I recover from some minor surgery and it's just hard to believe all of this was ten years ago. These episodes, aside from a few of the pop culture references, still hold up well. Can't stress again how much I appreciated and enjoyed Karen Harris' run on this show(March-December 2000). The right blend of humor, realism, and gripping drama. I'm not watching them all in order, rather just select episodes here and there. It's amazing how, despite the fact that GH was going for this arc-style storytelling even back then, they still never let four characters just swallow the show whole(as Caleb/Livvie/Alison/Rafe did during the arcs). Even ten years later, I hate Felicia "Soap Producer Extraordinaire" Behr and Angela "Shop The Soaps" Shapiro for f^cking over this show.

I think they taped at the same studio in New York. And you mean AW was disqualified from a Best Writing Nod? Do tell. God, the flamenco dancing opening was the absolute worst.

Does anyone know if the Flood Episodes of Search are on YouTube or are available for Trade?

Okay so NOW who's being rude?

Thanks for the info Sindacco! I hope it isn't lip service and that they do more 90's/Reilly Era I stuff. Eff the stuff from Days in the 80's.

Restless Dreamer by Boy Meets Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lGlE1Q6L0c

DAMN! No wonder the show ended in a cliffhanger! BTW, does anyone know where I can see that final episode? Or see any episodes from like 1978-1980?

Till the End of Time was beautiful. Probably my favorite of all her ballads. That was slated to be the next single, but they shelved it for the MTV Unplugged Disc.

Emotions(the album) was so underrated. A bit overproduced, but a victim of an overeager Mariah and poor single choices.

Can't Let Go (Edit). Have always preferred this to the album version, which had the high note at the end. Without that, it makes the song more haunting and dramatic.

All you have to do is look at Mariah Carey as the perfect example of staying stagnant. She, honestly, has only had one major reinvention. There was pre-Butterfly(adult contemporary/ballad singer) and post-Butterfly(R&B, trashy rap girlfriend). Mariah isn't creative enough to step outside of her comfort zone and level to experiment with other styles of music to remain relevant, which is fine if that works for her. Now I still LOVE Mariah(Mimi completely destroyed her for me, IMO), but when you look at her as an artist in the grand scheme of things, she's been doing the exact same thing for well over ten years. That Butterfly sh*t with the musical hooks and stylings that sound so late 1997. I think if GaGa relies on her same bag of tricks to stay relevant, it may work for the first single out of the gate, but the mainstream(along with these payola stations) will get sick of pimping her songs and move onto the next undiscovered sensation.

I like GaGa, don't get me wrong... But I don't think putting on a bunch of weird outfits qualifies as a "reinvention." Madonna reinvents herself, but she adopts a new style every album. We've only had one album and an extension LP from GaGa. That's not enough to decide whether she will have staying power or whether she will be the next Madonna. The real test comes with her next album. She's gonna have to realize that she can't rely on the same tricks she did with the first, nor can she rely on comparisons to Madonna to sell records. She's gonna have to do more than make Poker Face 2.0, make glossy music videos, and wear weird outfits and accessories. And she's gonna have to accept that her second album may not be as good as her first and, instead of breaking down, just tour with it and work on the next one. Madonna had staying power because she(unlike other popstresses of the 80's) never gave up. If an album or movie didn't quite work out, she focused on the next effort.

Night Music by Simple Minds

I never quite got your thoughts on that DAYS soundtrack. Care to let me know what you think?

Racecar Bed Sex. *puke*

LOL. I just saw your puke emoticon about Madonna doing acoustic guitar and lyrics for the next album and assumed you were hating.

F*ck all you American Life haters, BTW. That album was great!

This video was just all over the place and there really wasn't any consistency. It was basically, "How much weird, random sh*t can we put in the video?" There should have been an actual story and way more choreography in this, especially for a song that has such a fierce hook and beat. I was especially disappointed because I was totally looking forward to the Telephone video.

I definitely like the IDEA behind the DAYS CD, even if I am not too fond of the execution of it. They will likely focus on the last ten years or so, so I wouldn't expect any of those sweeping cues and strings from the 80's, sadly. Y&R had some good stuff, music-wise, in the last decade(save for the college rock sh!t Latham's era bestowed upon Allocco and Kurtz). The cues they used in Paris and beyond were good and some of their recent intrigue cues, which are so un-Y&R, but still good in its own right(the one I like is often used during Patty's scenes).

I'd rather have a full minute of a loop of a track than just one thing that bleeds into the next. Thank goodness they didn't do that with the first set of cues. I should also let you guys know that I e-mailed LaLaLand asking them about who picked the cues and Corday and Nelson did and that they wanted to focus more on the last ten years of the show, which is why we didn't get alot of those 93-97 cues we loved so much. When asked if they planned on going to other composers, the reply was, "The Young and the Restless" might be next. Aside from the coffee rock sh*t that Latham bestowed upon us, I'd really look forward to a two disc of those scores. Some of the more recent ones, while they may not sound Y&R-esque, are still pretty good. I'd love to hear an extended cut of the sad cue playing at the end of this clip with Nick/Sharon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4goF4rkZDA

You will definitely love the first CD. It doesn't have that bleeding from one segment to the next thing going on. I also like a track titled "Skyline," but that's the Watercolors XM fan in me. It sounded like they tried to avoid as many porn-y sounding cues as possible. And as I mentioned earlier, I love "Innocence." Connects me to an era of my growing up watching DAYS and a time when soaps were just so fun, magical, and engaging. As much [!@#$%^&*] as I give DAYS and as much as I laugh about it now, I really loved watching it back then.

A couple of previews/samples are now on the LaLaLand website. http://lalalandrecords.com/DOOL.html And here's what the CD insert says about the second disc: "This disc has been carefully mixed and assembled to convey six mini storylunes. You will notice that most of the tracks have been blended with the track before or after. For instance, if you skip to track 3 "Execution," you will notice the track has already started. This is meant to be like this, for it enables you to appreciate the composers craft at creating atmosphere and bring you into the storylines created by the names of the tracks. The storyline tracks are denoted below: 1-6: Sami's Revenge/Stan 7: Lethal Injection of Stefano DiMera. 8-11: Stalking and Manipulation of EJ DiMera. 14-15: Stefano and Colleen Brady 16-22: The Morgue 23-27: Searching for the Salem Stalker 29-33: Kidnapping and Escape"

I'm afraid so. And I was a faithful viewer from about 1995-1999. I would have known for sure if anything else from Reilly I was there. But maybe you have a more keen ear. Certainly not the cue I wanted(the one they used to play during Bo/Hope scenes in the 90's). When I get home, I'll let you know everything else they said regarding the second CD.