Hmmm

(Pulls on his waterproofs and wades right on in)...

I liked the film O Brother.
I liked the music too.

I have to admit that like Ron Olesko, I thought that Bill Kennedy was having a pop at the re-interpretation of these songs, just because they were not the original versions, which were evidently in his opinion better.

I am intrigued by Bill's futher explanation that it must be pop music because it's popular. Ermmm - how can one define what kind of music something is, in terms of the number of people who listen to it?

By similar logic, I could be entitled to assert that a Chieftains recording is not Irish music because many more non-Irish than Irish people listen to it. Now, that's not what Bill says, but look where you can get to by making up your own rules for classification on the basis of your own prejudices.

I agree that the film's music is portrayed as "real" and "roots" - but if we look at those statements in context, - it's clear that compared to the vast majority of recycled flavourless pap that emanates from the recording industry, this stuff is pretty close to the Real Thing. Not quite there, but getting there...

What else? Ummm, I don't think that the Odyssey theme was particularly well handled in the film , to be honest. At least, I'd have been happier if they hadn't made such a big deal about it. The film had some ,a few, not very direct or imaginative references to the Odyssey. It'd have been much better if they had left it up to the audience to detect the hints for themselves, rather than having it hyped up as it was...

However... that aside, some of the stuff that interests me about it was the political stuff. The sleazy, but wily old incumbent (Clinton??) is seen as astute enough to flex, while the family-values, squeaky clean candidate(your guess is as good as mine) is unmasked as the KKK leader.....

Cheers

Steven