Yesterday afternoon I saw a new post on the YahooJM Message Board on my RSS reader. From the summary I saw it said something about paying 15 bucks for a CD and finding out it only has 4 new songs. When I clicked on it to read more I found that the actual message had been removed from the message board.

I contacted the author and asked them to email me what they wrote. This was the missing post.

“I think it’s really not right what is happening with cd’s today. There is such hype for the MBC new CD, you go out & spend $15 on it, only to find out that it only has 4 new songs on it & the rest are either old stuff or other ‘guest” singers. If this were a “live” cd, then say it is a live CD & advertise the fact that there are 4 brand new songs on a live cd. That would be much more honest.”

This is what I wrote on the message board (before reading the missing post.)

I don’t know what the whole post said that got moderated and taken down, but the part I did get to read in my aggregator I couldn’t agree with more. This CD was not just filler, it was misleading.

It says in very small letters on the bottom that it’s also from a concert, but just from looking at it quickly it looks like a regular album. Plus it doesn’t sound like too much rerecording or work went into the concert parts of this CD.

It’s a shame that YB (Yerachmiel Begun) feels he needs to put out a CD just to have something on the market. Maybe it would have been smarter to just come out with a full album when you have one ready or a full concert CD when you have one ready.

What makes matters even worse is that a different cover was sent out to bloggers and (I think) other people. The cover that was being emailed around the internet for publicity did NOT have the line at the bottom mentioning that it also contained songs from a concert.

If you go to MostlyMusic’s website you will see that the news announcement carries the cover without the concert information. In fact from this news item you would NEVER know it wasn’t a regular album.

I’m sorry but even if I’m dan lekav zchus and don’t assume it was purposely misleading, at the very least it was irresponsible marketing. In this case, knowing it was NOT a regular album, a much more responsible effort should have been made to ensure people could easily tell what they were buying. There was just too much room left for people to make that mistake.

In a later post that was also removed and emailed to me. The same poster wrote:

“MBC isn’t the only one who did this to the public. HASC 19 did the same exact thing. I awaited anxiously for it to come out, went out, grabbed the package, brought it home, expecting to see the full 2 + hours of concert, only to find that it had snipets of each performer & onlythe videos to certain songs. It lasted a little over 1/2 hour! I was so mad. It just isn’t right! Also, in teeny tiny letters on the botten is said “highlights.” I don’t have the time to stand around & pre listen to a cd. I just presume that the performer is decent enough not to lie like that to the public, which are their fans.”

As I emailed this poster, the only difference to me is that on the HASC 19 DVD it does state very clearly (although in a softer font color) HIGHLIGHTS. It’s front and center mixed in with the title “HIGHLIGHTS of a Time for Music” As you can clearly see from this image.

The writers point still remains that there is nothing on this DVD and it’s again, junk filler. I don’t see the need to release something, just to release something.

One other comment and then I’m done. Avraham Fried waited a good 4 (5?) years between his last two albums and I don’t think it hurt him one bit. In fact I liked his last CD better then his last 2 regular albums. I think other artists should learn from this model and accept that the market doesn’t NEED a product from them every 6-12 months. Sometimes the old adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” works well.

This is a very interesting and troubling story. A woman was caught stealing at a recent L’Chaim in Crown Heights.

Brooklyn, NY –- Monday night amidst a L’chaim taking place in the Jewish Childrens Museum a few of the participants noticed they were missing some of their personal belongings, and after a quick search they found it to be in the possession of a Jewish woman who was attending the event herself but was not related to any of the families.

Police were called and the woman quickly admitted to what she had done and offered to return the items, which she did. Police asked the victims if they wanted to press charges against the woman to which they all refused but requested she be escorted from the building.

In this situation what would you do? She has been allegedly doing this for quite some time now. Of course you don’t want to send another Jew to prison, but this person obviously needs help. These people at this simcha were lucky she was caught and they got their things back, but what about the next simcha?

So what would you do?

I wasn’t there, but I heard it was a nice show.

Here is the video, and here are some AWESOME pics (here too.)

I stumbled upon this blog this morning. What an interesting post, you just have to read it. “When Dad Goes Off and Becomes Frum“

I haven’t laughed so hard in ages, this is such a funny show even if it is written by raving liberals

I will be hosting Haveil Havalim this Sunday, please e-mail me your top 1 or 2 posts of the week.

GOV GETS AN EARFUL ON TRAGEDY …

Good job to the Vos Iz Neias blog.

Let me set the scene for you. Take something like, Star Wars, and you will get lots of love, but tons of fanboy critique. Every fan has their complaints and thinks they could have done better. (especially those Prequels!) Now imagine if George Lucas made an announcement and told all the fans - “Here are the keys to the franchise, continue as you wish, whatever you’d like you can do.”

Wouldn’t that be cool? Even more important at the moment - what kind of serious dork am I that I could even make that analogy in the first place? Geez, I know, right? I can imagine now that the real question is “can I even trust Chaim to ever write a normal post after this?” .. and you’d be right for asking, but let me just connect the dots and be on more way.

The Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards have forever been part of a love/hate J-Blogger relationship. This year for the first time, us, the bloggers have been given the keys to the “franchise.” We are working very hard to make this something that every blogger can get on board with. We are trying to address every concern that every blogger had over the years.

Things are going very smoothly so far, we even have a brand new website. There are a few of us that have been working non stop on this project, and we have already secured 4 (at least) very good sponsors. We’re looking for more sponsors, and we’re looking for one or two more people that can take on an aggressive and active role.

You can join our Jib Google Group to take part in this discussion and offer some assistance or you can e-mail me or Akiva or BagelBlogger for more information.

I leave you now with a sincere apology that I will never again use a Star Wars analogy so gracelessly.

This is VERY smart and I think will repair a lot of the damage. It really shows an intimate and personal reaction and response. They mass e-mailed one of the most self deprecating apology emails I’ve ever read. (i.e. we screwed up, we suck, this was a very embarrassing and sobering experience, please forgive us) and the CEO even recorded a personal message and put it on YouTube. Very smart. Very smooth.

I’ve had this CD since it first came out. I took this long to get around to writing the review because when I was listening to it, each time I heard it, I liked it more. At first when I played this CD only a couple songs really appealed to me. but after listening to it a few times I was appreciating more and more of the songs. So I made a decision not to write the review until I felt that I had a good handle on the album.

1)
Kal Zman is the first song on this CD and it’s one of those songs that at first I really disliked. I still can’t pinpoint why I didn’t like it at first, but it has grown on me and my opinion of the song has changed. I really like the music on this song, it shows a lot of energy, but I feel that the song is very typical for this genre and not good enough for Ohad’s amazing vocal range. (A theme you will see recur throughout this review)

2)
Gedolah Shira has a hip hop beat thing going on mixed with an Oif Simchas feel. It’s a different song then we are used to from Ohad. I really like it and I love the musical arrangements on this song in particular. I could have done without the Yossi Green background choir though. The song is composed by Yossi Green and I love that we are seeing a bit of different style emerging from Yossi (more on that later.) It’s a song that every time I hear I like more and more.

3)
The next song is Chavivin Yisroel, and it is the 3rd fast song on the album in a row. I really like that they moved away from the fast/slow/fast/slow predictable flow of most JM albums. It’s great to start out an album with three fast energetic songs. That could be one of the things that was throwing me off at first, because the flow is so different. As far as the actual song, Ohad has some real nice high parts and the music is very good, but we’re seeing the same problem. We’re being served caviar on paper plates. If you take my (maybe too repetitive) complaint, this is a very good song, it’s very catchy and you can sing along from the start.

4)
Like Chavivin Yisroel this next song, Eitz Chayim was composed by Ohad. Unlike the previous song, this one was done without the assistance of Moshe Laufer. Eitz Chayim is one of two songs on this album that Ohad composed on his own. Eitz Chayim is a beautiful slow song that just touches on the surface of what Ohad can do as a singer. I don’t have much else to say other then that.

5)
Shalom Aleichem is another fast song and it’s composed by Yossi Green. Yossi has been putting out some great stuff latetly, and as quick as I am to criticize, I want to stress here that I have really liked some of the new songs Yossi Green has composed. Songs like, Baishanim, Gedolah Shira, this song, as well as the new song from Shloime Gertner, Im Ein Ani Li, which has been playing on ShmaisRadio for the last two weeks.

Shalom Aleichem is absolutely one of those songs that I didn’t connect with at first. It did have a familiar feel to it and I don’t know if it’s because the lyrics of Shalom Aleichem is hard song to write for or because I heard Ohad sing this song in concert twice already and the CD version is much better. This was one of the songs that at first I didn’t like, but now it’s one of my favorites on the album.

6)
Odcho is flat out an 80’s power balled song, and you know what? I don’t mind it one bit, because it’s done so well. This is another song composed by Yossi Green. The arrangements are done by Ron Tichon, which is something you can tell right away. I really like the entire feel of this song. I think this is one of the first songs on this CD that really compliments Ohad’s voice, except that maybe the music is too powerful at times. This is one of my favorite songs on the CD.

7)
Vayichan Sham is another fast song and it has a nice middle eastern groove to it. This is one of the songs that I couldn’t put my finger on, but something felt off. It still isn’t one of my favorite songs, and I don’t like the arrangements on this song either. It feels a bit flat to me, but this is the other song that is composed by Ohad and it ties into another theme that is recurring on this album. That is a shift towards a more Sepharidc style overall.

Ekraecha is a slow song composed by Pinky Webber. It’s another knock out song and it grabbed me from the start. I didn’t have to get used to this song and I don’t have anything critical to say about it. Ohad sings it with a lot of feeling and his voice really sounds magnificent through the song. It’s another one of my favorites on the album.

9)
Stop is a horrible song. There I said it. I’m sorry. This song has some major identity issues. It doesn’t know what it is. Unlike Odcho which is a great 80’s power balled song, this is a very bad clone of one of those 80’s candy pop songs. It reminds me of that Robin Sparkles song that they made fun on on H.I.M.Y.M (watch it here)

If there is one saving grace for this song it’s that Ohad’s actual voice (NOT the lyrics or his accent) sounds great in this song. The arrangements are very well done and there is a great flow. But Ohad should not be the one singing this song. He sounds like he is breaking his teeth with the English and the lyrics are just awful. “I once heard the wise man say just Stop! Don’t think about it, Cause tomorrow is a brand new day” We are talking about the most cheesy, typical, summer camp lyrics here.

At other times because of Ohad’s accent and how obviously hard he is trying NOT to break his teeth on these words, the lyrics even come off creepy “I sometimes stop and listen to the children when they play and enjoy the sound of laughter and the funny things they say” It’s a bad bad song, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t trash the album over it, and in fact overall I’, a big fan of the album. I just wish this song hadn’t been on the CD. Someone was sleeping on the job that day.

10)
Ok, now that I told you what my worst song on the album was, let me tell you about my favorite song on the album. The final song on this CD, Neshomele, is one of the best songs that I’ve heard Ohad sing to date. As awful as he came off breaking his teeth on those English lyrics, he sounds exactly like you would expect someone with his amazing talents to sound. This is Ohad at his best and the fact that the song is a Hebrew song makes all the difference.

This is an excellent song. The words stream out of his mouth with such grace - every word sounds beautiful. From the first time I heard this song I knew it would be my favorite song on the CD. It has a similar sound to like Pia Pascha, the one Ohad sings from Yishai Lapidot, and at first I assumed Yishai composed this song, but according the booklet, it’s another job well done by Yossi Green. Although the lyrics were done by Yishai, so I was half right. The arrangements were done by Yuval Stupel. I can’t say enough great things about this song. It’s a great slow song, with beautiful lyrics and Ohad reaches some seriously impressive vocal highs.

Overall
I think this is a really quality album, the music is very energetic and Ohad sounds great. But like I keep saying, Ohad is a vocal phenomenon and this guy needs better stuff. Yes, the songs on this CD are better then the first CD, so they are getting there. But he needs something more, something newer, something courageously different, something spectacular.

I think the reason it took me a few weeks to really enjoy the album was because I was learning to settle for the fact that even though these are great songs, it’s still not doing it for the talent that Ohad brings to the table. After you get past that, then you start to really enjoy the album. I really like that there was a shift towards a more middle eastern style. I wonder if for Ohad to really get songs tailor made for him he needs more Israeli style songs. More Chaim Yisroel, Gad Elbaz, Yishai Lapidot type material. Until that happens, this CD will do just fine for now. It’s a great CD and I recommend giving it a try.

- You can read my review of Shwekey’s CD by clicking here.
- Here is another review of Ohad’s CD at Jewish Blogmeister’s.

Jordon Chaviv e-mails to download a free song from his website at JewishRnB.com

Aryeh at the Jewish Music blog has prelim thoughts on Gertner and Veroba.

The JewishMusicReview blog has preview clips and the cover for the newest Miami Boys Choir.

Sameach Music has a new Podcast up with new music from Shloime Gertner, Gershon Veroba, Srully Williger Ohad, R Shmuel Brazil & Nochi Krohn. It’s good stuff, as always.

BloginDm see’s the similarities between the Gertner cover and the last Matisyahu one.

Kumah has the info on an upcoming Shlomo Katz concert. Don’t walk - run. He’s awesome.

Jewish Educational Media has a new weekly Living Torah video excerpt here.

This will warm your heart, from France, our good friends and buddies. The elite of Europe, the people we should be saddened by cause of thier lack of love for the U.S. right now. These are people we’re supposed to aspire to be more like and want them to like us?

9/11 attacks ‘an incident’

Paris - French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has dismissed the September 11, 2001 attacks as an “incident”, saying the death toll of 3 000 was equal to the number of people killed in Iraq in a month.

Le Pen made the comment in an interview published on Wednesday with the Catholic newspaper La Croix during which he praised Islamic leaders for condemning the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

“The September 11 event, or one could say incident, prompted a certain number of people to distance themselves (from Islamic extremism) to avoid falling under the barrage of accusations that was then unleashed,” said Le Pen.

Commenting on the death toll from the attacks, Le Pen said: “3 000 dead, that is how many die in Iraq in a month and it’s far less than the deaths in the Marseille or Dresden bombings at the end of the Second World War.”

The National Front leader said the World War II bombings were “also terrorist acts as they expressly targeted civilians to force military leaders to capitulate”.

Le Pen, 78, stunned the nation when he qualified for the second round of voting against Jacques Chirac in the 2002 presidential election with nearly 17% of votes.

He is taking part in his fifth and undoubtedly last presidential campaign ahead of the April-May election.

The far-right leader was convicted of Holocaust denial after he declared in 1987 that the gas chambers used by Nazi Germany to exterminate Jews were a “detail in the history of World War II”. (link)

Bravo, this is who people are voting for in France? Ya, I really want THOSE people to like us more. Pity we don’t get along these days.