Word: sonically
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Like children with a new box of crayons, video-game makers are taking up these tools and using them to transform the cartoonlike earlier hit games -- Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II -- into something with lifelike action and plots. Meanwhile, the programmers have been joined by a new generation of Hollywood executives who, having tasted the power of computerized special effects, are eager to create a whole new form of entertainment that can be beamed over a cable line, bought in a cartridge or played from a compact disc. Both sides talk excitedly about making interactive movies...
...that the temptations to settle into a permanent slouch will only grow stronger. The electronic superhighway is on the way, with 500 channels of interactive broadcasting. Imagine this Leave It to Beaver update, circa 1997: after Wally and the Beaver rip through a few games of Return of Sonic the Hedgehog, after June finishes her home shopping and after Ward checks the closing stock quotes, they all settle down for the evening with a big bag of Fritos Lite and order up Home Alone...
...strong from its first full song, That's the Way Love Goes, a silken seduction ballad that purrs and pounces. When the singer wants to talk back at a lover who's been "runnin' 'round with those nasty hoes," she has to cut her way through a lush sonic rain forest. As if she were afraid of getting lost in the jungle depths, Jackson enlisted the aid of opera soprano Kathleen Battle, whose soaring obbligato she chases through the song like a kid following a bread-crumb trail out of a fairy-tale forest...
Kamakiriad is worth the wait. Produced by Becker, who also pitches in on bass and solo guitar, the album picks up where Gaucho and The Nightfly left off and goes one step further, meshing Fagen's urbanely elliptic lyrics with the sonic sass and snap of Steely Dan. The faithful will be glad to know that Becker and Fagen are already writing songs together for a new album, and plans are under way for a Steely Dan tour this summer. Meanwhile, Kamakiriad continues the Steely Dan legacy while deftly sidestepping the quicksand of nostalgia...
...prescription for Ray Charles seems simple: Work on the music and let the image take care of itself. With his new album, the cure is in hand. My World offers 10 songs, some tonic sonic production, and the man himself, sounding looser and more engaged than he has since Seattle blew in and rap took roost. My World is touched by up-to-date accents -- a techno flourish here, a bit of street beat there -- but it mostly presents Ray Charles himself, foursquare, singing from the soulful heart of pop. And that's plenty good enough...