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Da Vinci Vox: The Hidden Message
EMI, CD, Rs. 350
What can one say — it (Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code) was a bad book, a terrible film (Tom Hanks' bizarre hairstyle and shooting in the Louvre notwithstanding) and now you have a hare-brained album inspired by the book and movie. The Hidden Message is big time mumbo jumbo spiced up with Gregorian chants and obscure intonation. At least the book was pulp, a page-turner and also had a guilty pleasure attached to the reading of it. The same cannot be said of the movie or the music album as they take themselves too seriously for their own good. Why not come out in the open as what you are — just out to make much money on a publishing phenomenon? Why all the hocus-pocus about philosophy and religion and uncovering a history more than 2000 years in the making?
Supposedly recorded by anonymous society of musicians (they probably are ashamed to own up to this!) who are only known as the Da Vinci Vox: The Hidden Message propose to reveal all and bring down the scales that have so determinedly clung to our unbelieving eyes. The tracks are all inspired by the book with names like "Priory of Sion", "Opus Dei", "Grail Codex", "Temple Church" and "Rosslyn Chapel". Leonardo (Da Vinci) must be laughing himself silly as all conspiracy theorists go blue in the face revealing things.
Da Vinci Vox is the brainchild of French producer Serge Mazeres and he has been involved in the production and composing of the project. It is impossible to react to the album musically as that would defeat its purpose of riding piggyback on the book. And when you try to react to it by the book, the only feeling you are left with is of being jerked around. Like the many books and papers that came out promising to crack or break (or do similar violence to) the code, here is one more. If you need to give a no-brainer gift to someone who obsesses about the Da Vinci Code, then this is a suitably ponderous choice to make.
Various Artistes: Music from and inspired by Desperate Housewives
Hollywood Records, CD
"Look at me, I'm gorgeous in my housecoat with my coffee cup/ I bend to get the paper, every neighbour's trying to check me out," sings SheDaisy in God Bless The American Housewife in the first track of the album of music from and inspired by the popular television show, Desperate Housewives.
The show, which is a millennial version of Stepford Wives (the original not the new version with Nicole Kidman), is set in Wisteria Lane. Mary Alice Young, who commits suicide, is the narrator who tells all the sordid stories about her best friends including divorcee Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Huffman) who gave up her business for home and hearth, control-freak Bree (Marcia Cross) and ex-model Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), who cannot keep her hands off the gardener. The songs all celebrate the suburban American woman. Different emotions are explored like loss in Anna Nalick singing Band of Gold ("Now that you're gone/ all that's left is a band of gold), to longing in Indina Menzel's rendition of Damsel in Distress ("I'm just a housewife/ so sad and all alone/ Desperate for a strong man/ to help me fix my home.")
Martina McBride lets it all hang loose as she sings, "When you have the nerve to tell me that you think that as a mother I'm not fit/ Well this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites" (Harper Valley PTA) and Shania Twain is sure on to something as she sings, "Men are like shoes/ Made to confuse/ There's the kind made for running/ the sneakers and the low down heels/ The kind that will keep you on your toes/ And every girl knows how that feels." (Shoes). Then there is the ultimate paean to the American housewife, Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs Robinson sung by the Indigo Girls. The album interspersed with dialogues by the desperate housewives has a jaunty pop country sound that makes for divinely easy listening.
M.A.C
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