Shatner has another transformation with ‘Has Been’
Just when you thought the man’s career had (mercifully) been killed off…HE’S BAAAAAACK! I guess he waited 36 years between albums to make certain that he had just the right material, eh?
Whodathunkit? The man who first achieved notice as Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk has actually managed to have a productive and prolific career. The man can act…but I’m not so certain that he can sing? Of course, this is America, and if William Hung can release any album and make a career out of butchering Ricky Martin songs, who am I to deny William Shatner his shot at greatness? Well, OK…”greatness” may be overstating it a bit; no one will ever confuse Shatner for Laurence Olivier, but anyone who has been able to maintain an acting and “singing” career for going on 5 decades must have something going for him.
NEW YORK — Just in time for Halloween comes a CD from a guy more likely to inspire a holiday costume than a musical following — William Shatner.
The one-time James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame has released an 11-song collection this month, a follow-up to his 1968 spoken-word debut that garnered such critical infamy it became a camp classic….
The new album — slyly titled Has Been — once again puts Shatner’s choppy, emphasis-added words to music. But this time he’s penned his own lyrics and tempered the cheese quotient with a few musical friends. Ben Folds, who produced and arranged the new album and co-wrote many of the songs, wrangled guest appearances by Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Henry Rollins and Brad Paisley.
Still smirking?
As the music veers from lush pianos to soul, from gospel to cowboy twang, Shatner’s lyrics explore, among other things, his fear of aging, the death of a loved one, reconnecting with estranged children and the fickleness of fame.
Take the title track, Has Been, in which Shatner wrestles with critics who have called him washed up: “Has been implies failure / Not so / Has been is history / Has been was / Has been might again.”….
“It’s really interesting musically,” said Garson Foos, president of the Shout! Factory record label, which released the album and is targeting fans of intelligent, alternative rock. “We have modest expectations but we’re hopeful that we’ll exceed them.”
Foos, with his brother Richard, previously ran Rhino Records, a fact that made things a little sticky at first: Rhino had included two of Shatner’s songs on its first Golden Throats album — advertised as “embarrassing musical moments from celebrities you thought would know better.”
Shatner’s 1968 album The Transformed Man was a gold mine of such moments, a bizarre attempt to meld contemporary pop songs like Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds with excerpts from classic literature like Hamlet.
It was a record that launched a thousand titters and more than a few dead-on impressions from comedians mocking Shatner’s start-and-stop, overly dramatic phrasing. Think Kevin Pollak crooning “Mr. Tam-bou-rine maaaan!”
OK, consider yourself warned. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the record store….
Hey, I hear that Regis Philbin also has a new album out, also for the first time since 1968. Next you’ll be telling me that William Hung is releasing an album of Led Zeppelin and Barry Manilow cover songs. Hide the women and children, y’all….
