Word: backbeats
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...budding painter and middling bassist, may seem a long shot for rock immortality. He died at 22, months before the group, which he had earlier quit, cut its first record. But according to Backbeat, Stu was the dreamboat heart of the combo and John Lennon (Ian Hart) was its soul. Paul McCartney (Gary Bakewell) and George Harrison (Chris O'Neill) only whined and purred, respectively, while Lennon and Sutcliffe did the heavy lifting. John, you see, was Liverpool's own angry young man and the sole creator of this proto-punk, ur-grunge band (don't you love revisionism...
This is a low business, exploiting a musician's notoriety and an audience's star lust. It has reached a nadir of sorts with Backbeat, a homoerotic paean to Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff), the fifth Beatle. Or maybe the sixth, if you count pre-Ringo drummer Pete Best and leave out George Martin and Murray...
...Backbeat has an attractive cast and a passionate rock-'n'-roll score (played by some top young musicians). But with its attention to the posturings of Lennon and the untalented Stu, the movie succumbs to the post-Madonna notion that pop success is all a matter of attitude. That's so misguided. If you have any doubt, listen to the songs...
Slightly better news is that for the first time in several months, there's a new ROCK record--not a "pop" record or a "noise" record or an "artsy, but it's got a backbeat" record--that's actually exciting and challenging to listen to. aMINIATURE have clearly heard a lot of Big Black and a lot of Replacements--there's one song, "Featurist," on this disc that wouldn't sound out of place on the 'Placemats' LET IT BE LP. But the best analogy for aMINIATURE's sound is a defunct Richmond, VA band called Honor Role, who combined...
...swoon of self-accusation: "A pit with spikes is what I'm bringing you, hon.../ I'm not so deep that I can't be swum..." There's also a incongruously, startlingly cool falsetto bridge where head Egg Andrew Beaujon sounds exactly like Prince (with a temporarily funked-up backbeat to match). "Why Am I So Tired All the Time?" and "Evanston, IL" are quiet, slowly oscillating incarnations of post-teenage despair, as if a male lounge-jazz singer were suddenly infused with the authentic spirit of the late Joy Division. "Conchita," which I think is a plain old love...