Who Wants to Marry a U.S. Citizen? Farmer Wants a Wife? Reality T.V. keeps sinking.
| Music & Entertainment | December 1 | No Comments
Thanks to Drudge, I stumbled across this article. The title? “Show seeks to love match migrants and U.S. citizens.” Their goal? To marry off immigrants to the U.S. on temporary visas (almost entirely hispanic) to U.S. Citizens. They claim it proves that “love has no borders.” Instead, it simply proves that reality T.V. has no taste and sinks us lower and lower as a society. Lucky for us, this show has not been picked up, but I am actually expecting this show to be picked up by a cable network. Why? Because it’s drawing on the great Immigration debate and, with the Presidential elections in full swing, this show will garner attention and ratings as not only a horrible love show, but a political statement as well. Let’s see what’s been placed on T.V. as “reality” recently and what’s upcoming:
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Don’t let reality stand in the way of this incredibly emotional, touching, and inspirational movie.Wait, what does that mean, you ask? Let me tell you a little bit about August Rush first, because I didn’t know anything about the movie before seeing it with my sister. August Rush (starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Johnathan Meyers, and Robin Williams) is really the story of Evan Taylor, a 12 year old boy who is a prodigy of music. It’s about his quest to find his mother and father, who themselves do not even know he exists. All three are separated by fate, but through Evan’s musical gifts and his journey, things slowly come together.The story is held together by its sentimentalism and by its emotion. Evan (who takes on the name August Rush as a stage name) is able to play organ and guitar when they first touch his hands (remember me saying something about not letting reality stand in the way?). He is able to do amazing things, just like his parents, and the story relies on your belief on the power of music to interconnect people, to move people, to change the world.
This recording is significant for a couple of reasons. First, you need to know some history about Black Sabbath. After Ozzy left the band after the Never Say Die tour, the band needed a new singer, and their future was uncertain. Enter Ronnie James Dio, former vocalist of Rainbow (a band headed by Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame) and Elf. Ronnie already had quite a career behind him, with such things as Elf’s “Trying to Burn The Sun” album, as well as all of the Rainbow classics: Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Rainbow Rising, Long Live Rock And Roll, and even the gatefold LP On Stage live album. The Black Sabbath sound had gone from being a very heavy blues style on the first two albums (The self-titled album and Paranoid), to more of what can be construed as a doom sound (Master of Reality, Volume 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage) with slower and even heavier riffs; which would spawn a lot of today’s metal bands, and especially the entire genre of what is now known as Doom Metal (bands like Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, Electric Wizard, and even bands that bear Black Sabbath song titles as names, such as Saint Vitus and Wall of Sleep). Then the band took a different turn and got more upbeat and jazzy, but Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die not only didn’t sell very well, but the albums themselves are mostly put down by Sabbath fans (except for the track “Dirty Women” from the former). So the band obviously needed a change in direction.Once Ronnie entered the band, they began work on the album Heaven and Hell. This featured Black Sabbath performing not only faster songs than before, but Iommi’s soloing became more melodic and he had fills and guitar solos all over the place. The album is still considered to be one of Sabbath’s finest works. On the Heaven and Hell Tour, Bill Ward, Sabbath’s original drummer, left the band so he could combat his alcoholism – so they replaced him with the very capable Vinny Appice.
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