music whiz

The new Richard Cheese CD comes out tomorrow. And by "comes out tomorrow," I mean that it gets released the old-fashioned way to most retail stores. It's already been available at Hot Topic and online through iTunes (with three bonus tracks). On past discs, Richard has tackled rock songs, hip hop songs and Christmas songs. This time around he takes on one of my all time favorite genres, TV theme songs. We got a foreshadowing of this back in May when Richard did the "Spider-Man" theme. Check out Richard's YouTube channel for some of the theme songs matched with video from the original shows. Richard mailed me a CD the other day. My wife laughed out loud at the slow hand clap during the "Friends" theme. I loved the "Imperial March," even though it's from a movie, not a TV show.

When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I used my cassette recorder to tape the opening themes of every TV show I could. I would bring the tapes to the summer pool club, where the other kids would try to identify each show by its theme. If only I was somehow smart enough to turn my hobby into the successful "Television's Greatest Hits" album collection.

While I was looking for one of the links in the first paragraph, I stumbled across something called The Covers Project. They are building a database of cover songs, cross referenced by title and artist.

I'm not usually a fan of the music on "Dancing With the Stars." I have to admit that tonight the band did a cover of the Depeche Mode song "Personal Jesus" that wasn't bad at all. Later, while Marie Osmond was dancing to "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under," I imagined someone waking up from a coma and being shocked to find that the "Donny & Marie" show was still on the air 30 years later.