Latest news with #ElaminAbdelmahmoud
CBC
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
What Bruce Springsteen's lost albums reveal about him as an artist
Today, Bruce Springsteen decided to grace fans everywhere with not just one album, but seven albums of previously unreleased music. The box set, Tracks II: The Lost Albums, contains 83 new songs which showcase the Boss's love of country and orchestral music. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud chats with music journalists Carl Wilson, Vish Khanna and Niko Stratis to discuss the massive new release from Springsteen. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion on Serge Fiori's legacy and Lorde's new album, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Niko, this is a box set that spans from 1983 all the way to 2018, the vast majority of it recorded in the 1990s. Where was Bruce in this era? Why did he have so much music stockpiled, but not released out to the public? Niko: The '90s are such a funny period for Bruce. He has referred to people saying that that's his lost decade. He has very few records come out in the '90s. He has two come out at the same time, Human Touch and Lucky Town. Lucky Town comes out in '92. He does Streets of Philadelphia in '93. And then Ghost of Tom Joad comes out in '95. And that's kind of it. It's not until The Rising comes out in 2002 that we get anything new from Bruce. So it is this lost period. He's moved to California at this time. He's in Los Angeles, he's having kids, he's having a family — and he's made a lot of music, we just never heard it. Listening through this now, it is interesting to hear: where was Bruce in this era that we didn't really hear a lot from him? What did he sound like? What was he doing? What was he trying to do? And how would this have felt if it came out in the years that he recorded them? Had he put a country record out in '95 when he also did Ghost of Tom Joad, would people have been into it? And it's impossible to know the answer to that question. But now we have 83 tracks through which to wonder: what would have happened if Bruce was just throwing spaghetti at the wall his entire life? Elamin: Suddenly, you get this moment, Vish, where you are not confronted with, but blessed with, shall we say, a gigantic flood of new Bruce Springsteen songs that range in their styles. We have a country-style album. We have some orchestral stuff. He's working with a lot of different styles. What's it like waking up and being like, "Oh my gosh, look at all this, the Bruce bounty?" Vish: I think those of us who follow older artists are becoming accustomed to people putting out outtakes or unreleased material collections. In my memory — and I might be wrong — I can't think of anything like this. I can't think of any artist of his calibre being like, "Here's seven complete albums I made. I put out other stuff instead of this. So here you go." So when these collections come out, one thing beyond just marveling at the music that we get to hear, fans have to reckon with what our favourite artists' decision making processes are, their indecisiveness, their contemplation, the fact that they really think about these things. This particular set had me thinking: what if Bruce and Dylan — Bob Dylan, by the way, is who I'm referring to there — what if Miles Davis, Neil Young, all these people had Bandcamp or SoundCloud? Can you imagine? These days everyone's just like, "Hey everyone, I made a record last week, here you go." These folks sit on these things and I think it's kind of interesting because we're like, "OK, you didn't put this out? It's perfect. This is great." And I think the other thing we wrestle with as fans is: the stuff that did come? I don't know if it's as good as this now. I just think it's fascinating that Bruce and some of the other people I mentioned are able to provide us these alternate histories, while they're alive. That's really unusual to have all these people be like, "Here's what I did, here's what I could have done, here you go." Elamin: Carl, when you look at this box set, what does it tell you about what Bruce Springsteen wants us to know about him right now? Carl: It doesn't tell us anything we don't already know after the last 15 years or more of outtake albums and bonus discs. We're aware that Bruce produced work like a MF at all times. There is this project, I think, in the last decade of really putting the archives in order, alongside telling his story and his autobiography, alongside doing the Broadway show based on the autobiography, alongside making these documentaries. Bruce Springsteen wants to tell the Bruce Springsteen story. And the interesting thing is that he's willing to tell it now in a broader way. When Vish was talking about the choices that were made to put these albums out or not, I think a big part of it is that a lot of those projects here didn't suit the story that Bruce wanted to tell about Bruce Springsteen at particular times. They're not the heroic man of the people, masculine Bruce Springsteen at all times. They're kind of the weird artist Bruce Springsteen, obsessively making stuff in the garage studio. At various points, he veers away from putting out the orchestral pop album, from putting out the synthesizer album, from putting out the more mainstream country album instead of the Woody Guthrie-esque country album. So all of those choices show up here. And there's a romance to the idea of lost albums. And there is also the indications of strategy and fears about public perception and all of those kinds of things that are the backside to all of that.
CBC
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Will The Bear's new season get the show back on track?
Season four of The Bear came out last night. After the acclaimed television show lost its lustre in season three, can the chef-focused show redeem itself in the new season? Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud sits down with line cook and TV junkie Grace Onasanya and film critic Rachel Ho to talk about the latest season of The Bear and what the series continues to tell us about the tensions between the culinary arts and the restaurant business.
CBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Can a video game be a proxy for protest?
Social Sharing Roblox users are doing more than just hanging out in the virtual world; they're now starting to protest there. Some users — many of whom are children — are using their Roblox avatars to act as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, or to act as protesters against ICE, mimicking the real life tensions happening in Los Angeles right now. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with journalists Alyssa Mercante and Kieran Press-Reynolds to discuss what they've learned about the Roblox protests from their reporting on it. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: The notion that people's kids would go like, "Let me play around with what it would feel like to have a job somewhere in the city as an ICE agent and orchestrate immigration raids," that's the thing that feels a little bit surreal to me. Kieran, would you mind describing what that would even look like if you're in [Roblox] and you're playing this world and then suddenly, I assume a van pulls up, what happens? Kieran: I feel like the operative word is uncanny. This is a server where it's meant to simulate real life. So it could be these blocky avatars that are wearing lifelike vests, they're in dark vans that say ICE, a mob of people come out. They're toting weapons. They go into a chicken restaurant that's modeled off of a real restaurant and they just begin shooting people or taking people hostage. I saw one video of a man selling elote with a very lifelike beard and hat and flannel, and he was being pulled into a dark van that was flashing lights. So, I mean, it's very harrowing to see, even if it's in this LEGO-rendered visual. Elamin: I just want to talk about these protests, maybe in the context of — optimism is not quite the word for it — but some kind of usefulness. Which is to say: do you read these protests existing on Roblox, do you read them as a political investment from young people into their political universe — and as a result, a way to learn how to protest, and a way you learn how to engage through protest? Is that your read of it? Alyssa: Yeah, I think. Look, Roblox has also aged up over the last few years, with players who started playing this when they were eight, nine, 10 still playing it, that are now 13, 14, 15. And they're obviously encountering this stuff more regularly, even in their schooling and in their learning, they're learning about the history of this country. I do think that in many cases, this is an example of kids who are trying to process something that they're seeing every day and trying to understand not only what it means for their friends and their family, but for the country as a whole. I think we wrongfully consider kids as future citizens, when they are citizens. And what's going on with ICE, especially in L.A. and in Southern California, is affecting children — in some cases more so than it's affecting adults because their caretakers are being taken away, their coaches, their teachers are scared, there's worry that they shouldn't be going outside during recess or doing intramural sports because they might get snatched by an ICE agent, they are deporting children as well. So I think this is an example of these kids — who might actually want to go do this in person, maybe if they're on the older end or go with a parent — that don't want to go outside and take that risk. Or they just want to also understand what the conversation is. Maybe they are trying to figure out where they land on this political landscape. And I think it's something that I'm optimistic about because they have politicized an essentially de-political place, which is interesting. Kieran: I very much agree with Alyssa. I think that Roblox is almost like what Facebook promised the Metaverse would be and then couldn't deliver on. It is this world that, for a lot of kids, is like their new cafe, it is their recess yard, it is the space where they meet friends and they talk to people. And so it's having a real nurturing effect on what they believe in. I think just because it's online, people tend to discredit TikTok activism, movements that spawn on other platforms. I think that maybe a kid could become radicalized by having their avatar shot by an in-game ICE agent. And also maybe it helps them feel like part of the movement when they can't, and makes them want to do more research, talk to their family about it, talk to their teachers. I think it could have a positive effect for sure.
CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
11 years after his death, this mysterious musician continues to attract new fans
With a new book out, and a tribute album and documentary on the way, the late Toronto new-wave icon Nash the Slash is enjoying a renaissance 11 years after his death. The mysterious musician is best known for concealing his face behind mummy-like bandages and sunglasses. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with music journalist and podcaster Paul Myers about Nash the Slash and why his music and DIY philosophy still resonate today. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube (this segment begins at 15:26):
CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Celebrity art shows: are they good?
There are two celebrity art shows on right now that are getting a lot of buzz — but not necessarily for all the right reasons. Robbie Williams and Adrien Brody have both received bad reviews for their respective art shows. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with art critics Annie Armstrong and Eddy Frankel about the reaction to, and the quality of, Adrien Brody's show in New York City and Robbie Williams's show in London. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Panel produced by Amelia Eqbal.
