The other night I found myself magically transported to a world far better than our own, a world where I could be mesmerized as Barry Gibbs and Peter Frampton infiltrated an Aerosmith rendition of "Come Together" to rescue Barry's feather-haired damsel from the foul clutches of rock and roll. When Barry and Steven Tyler brandished microphone stands to fight for the woman they both loved (nothing Freudian about that), and the golden-haired princess fell to her untimely death, my heart nearly stopped. Nothing could make me feel whole again - except perhaps Barry crooning to his lover's corpse with a heartfelt "Golden Slumbers."
I didn't want to wake up.
And, luckily, I don't have to. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band is OnDemand for a few more weeks!
That's right, Reader. It wasn't a dream - at least not in the loss-of-consciousness-REM-cycle sense of the word. It was the horribly campy 1978 visual tribute to the best of the Beatles, starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton!
Imagine, if you will, Reader, an empty room. Now with your mind's eye, fill that room with all the illicit substances that had to have been consumed to create this film. Not just during principal photography, oh no. Imagine pre-production. Imagine the pitch meeting. Imagine Maurice Gibb leaning back in a faux-velvet chair, in the middle of a smoke-filled B-theater, watching the Beatles' mildly successful Yellow Submarine, and saying to himself (and anyone within earshot), "Yeah, man. I could do that." Imagine all the people...
And yet, not even the indisputable glory of Sgt Pepper's could overshadow the resplendence of Barry Gibb's skin-tight pants. Let's face it, the man would have been less exposed had he been stripped down naked. I found myself pondering how a man with such disturbing fashion sense and that high, girlish voice could have gained such success, even respect, in the music industry.
Then I got in my car and Maroon 5 blasted from my CD player.
And it struck me. Adam Levine, James Blunt, Robin Thicke - they're like the Barry Gibb of our generation. Yes, they lack the perfectly wind-blown coif, but the pants? The voices? It's all there.
What happened, Reader? I thought we'd moved past this. I thought we'd left the 70s where they belonged (in the 90s). I thought we had realized how foolish we were for finding those pants and that voice so irresistible. Oh, well. At least we aren't still wasting our time with psychadelic two-hour music videos with sorry attempts for a story written around our favorite melodies of the Fab Four.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Reader, I'm going to go watch Across the Universe.
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