No Limits: The 2 Unlimited Musical

Fresh from the success of Mamma Mia! - the film of the show of the song of the thing Italian stereotypes say – comes No Limits: The 2 Unlimited Musical. With a story penned by Alice Munro and featuring the Europop band’s biggest hits, there can be no doubt that this comes with a great amount of expectation. But will it succeed?

If the crowd at the preview shows is anything to go by, the answer is, emphatically, “yes”. Or maybe even “emphatically, yes”. Or possibly “yes,” but said emphatically, with a nod of the head, so that the emphasis is inferred, rather than said outright.

The story of No Limits revolves around Anita, a young Dutch shoe shop employee who falls for her boss, a young go-getter called Ray. But how will she capture the heart of her hard-working employer who seems to have no time for romance? Enter Cloggy, a mysterious wooden shoe creature who befriends Anita and sets out to help her find true love.

It’s a clichéd story, to be sure, but what brings it all together is the music. Like the Abba songs in Mamma Mia!, the Queen songs in We Will Rock You and the Wheatus songs in Teenage Dirtbag: The Musical, the sheer brilliance of 2 Unlimited’s music really does ensure a quality time for all.

Take the scene in which Anita is bemoaning Ray’s lack of social life because he’s always at the shoe shop. What better way to exemplify this than with 2 Unlimited’s excellent top ten hit Workaholic? This song had everyone dancing in the aisles, especially with its brilliant lyrics such as “Drinking drinking like an alcoholic/That guy is just a workaholic”! Why, it’s nearly as good as when Turbo D of Snap declared that rhythm was a dancer, and did so with all the seriousness of a terrible illness. Lyrics like this only come once in a lifetime.

Anita (left) and Ray, the main characters of No Limits. Cloggy not pictured.

Another excellent idea by the producers of No Limits was to have a screen behind the stage projecting the lyrics, like a giant karaoke machine. None of the viewers watching could resist joining in with Get Ready For This, and it was a joy to hear a huge hall full of people all singing along: “Are y’all ready for this?/ner ner ner neh neh neh ner ner ner ner neh neh neh ner ner ner ner/neh neh neh ner ner ner ner neh neh neh ner ner ner ner/nernernernernernerner yeah!/nernernernernernerner yeah!”

Of course, nothing is perfect, and No Limits does suffer occasionally from being a little too reliant on the songs in order to propel the story forwards. Magic Friend, one of 2 Unlimited’s least popular hits, seems to be the only reason why Cloggy is in the show at all. Also, an entire scene in which Anita finds herself trapped in a strange world where catchy European pop music doesn’t exist is only there so the producers can fit in the song Twilight Zone. But then, who am I to gripe, if the alternative is no appearance by this excellent piece of music? All together now! “This is the Twilight Zone/And you’re not on your own/Gonna take you to the Twilight Zone!” Hooray!

Oh, and just in case you were worried, the eponymous world-wide smash hit for which 2 Unlimited are most famous – No Limits – does appear in the show. Did you really think they’d leave it out? No, no. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. No, no. There’s no effing way they’d leave it out.

In summary, then, No Limits – The 2 Unlimited Musical is the best musical I’ve ever seen based around the songs of a much missed Europop band of the 90s. Well, not counting Pump up the Jam! The Technotronic Musical and The Culture Beat Beat Beats on: Featuring Mr Vain and all the Rest of Culture Beat’s Hits in the Form of a Stage Play Set to Music with the Songs Related (Sometimes Spuriously) to the Events Occurring in the Story. But then, those two musicals really are the benchmark for 90s dance-influenced musicals.

No Limits: The 2 Unlimited Musical begins December 1st at the Glasgow McUpChuck Theatre. Tickets are white, with black writing. The first 20 customers receive a free baby.

Music Documentary Review - VH1's F Sharp Minor: Behind the Music

Next week, VH1 will broadcast their long-awaited music documentary, F Sharp Minor: Behind the Music. It spans the more than fifty years that the chord has been in the music industry, and features interviews with musicians, colleagues and friends of the popular artist, as well as F Sharp Minor himself. I was granted a sneak peek at the program after befriending a gullible cameraman.

To convey the wealth and scope of F Sharp Minor’s career is a daunting task, but one which the documentary’s makers have succeeding in doing. Archive footage shows early appearances by the chord in songs by skiffle band Ernie and the Milkmen, though one would be hard pressed to recognise the chord we all know and love today. F Sharp Minor talks at length about the difficulty he faced in those early days, and the hardships he suffered from living in the shadow of his elder – and more commonly used - brother, F Sharp. It is here that we see a far more raw, human side of the chord, as he thanks the God of Music that he didn’t suffer the same fate as B Suspended 7, a chord who disappeared in the late 1950s and hasn’t been seen since.

Famous fans of F Sharp Minor are interviewed, including such long-time collaborators as Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Brian Wilson. And while the documentary could have descended into a sycophantic love-in, dissenting voices are also given some airtime, including that of Keith Richards. The Rolling Stones guitarist still feels resentment towards F Sharp Minor after the chord was heard on the Beatles’ Revolver album at a time when he had promised Richards his exclusive use. Lou Reed also talks disparagingly of the chord, something that F Sharp Minor puts down to “a misunderstanding over some stolen ham.”

Witnessing the development of F Sharp Minor as an artist over the years is a treat, and from his tripped-out psychedelic days of the sixties to his reverence at the hands of late-90s Britpop artists like Oasis and Blur, VH1 show us the story of a chord who has moved with the times in a way few other collections of notes have.

My one complaint with the documentary, however, is the glossing over of several more embarrassing moments in F Sharp Minor’s career. A collaboration with Kriss Kross in 1991 is mentioned, but nothing more is said. Several appearances on Tatu’s 2002 album 200 Km/h in the Wrong Lane are also alluded to, but we are told no more. The chord’s unfortunate arrest in 1973 for transporting a minor over state lines is sadly absent from the film.

Such omissions notwithstanding, VH1 have put together a thoroughly enjoyable look into the life and career of one of rock’s greatest chords, and they are to be commended. I look forward to seeing their forthcoming documentary, Eight Bar Drum Intro: Behind the Music.

F Sharp Minor: Behind the Music will be shown at 8:00 on VH1 on Wednesday week. It’s on at the same time as Lost, so you might want to record it and watch it later.

The Latest Magazines Reviewed!

The April issue of The British Philosophical Journal is about to hit the newsagents, and it’s as full of all your favourite philosophers as previous issues. The cover features prominent American philosopher John Searle, who talks inside about his favourite Girls Aloud songs, his tips for the upcoming European Cup finals and the best places to eat in his home town of Denver. Also included in the publication is a pull-out-and-keep guide to ontological proofs of the existence of God, the fourth in the series of Classic Interviews (in which Bertrand Russell tells us, over a game of pool, why he is not a Christmas card-sender), and a poster of Daniel Dennett. There is also a competition, the winner of which will be flown to Los Angeles, where they will get backstage passes to a talk on homuncular functionalism by William Lycan.

Also out next week is the latest issue of Teen Pop! magazine, a new publication aimed at teenagers who like pop music. In this issue, Rihanna discusses her views on Kantian ethics, while Leona Lewis talks to Russell Brand about her forthcoming biography of nineteeth century German painter Adrian Ludwig Richter. Also in this issue, win a chance to shoot the Westlife member of your choice in the knee, and Will Self compares the work of Mariah Carey to the written ouvre of Andrea Dworkin.

Blank Cassette Collector Monthly has a new format this month, moving to a Berliner size and having a guest editor for every issue. With Salman Rushdie at the helm of this issue, articles include Memorex in 1992: The Golden Year, The Blank CD: Why it is Shit, and How to Stop Your Children From Recording Things on Your Blank Cassettes. Also, Part 2 of Nick Hornby’s opinion piece The Other Side: Why it’s Good to Put Music on Your Blank Cassettes, with a counterpoint article by Grundy Macintosh, chairman of the Blank Cassette Collector Club.

Fans of the monthly serial Build a Chair will be pleased to find that the next issue comes with a cushion for the chair that they have very nearly finished building over the last 36 months. The final issue will be released in June, coming with a free pot of paint.

Finally, on a sad note, Casual Racist Magazine will no longer be in print after this month’s edition, but to celebrate three hate-filled years the publication will come with a free Bernard Manning joke book.

Music review: “Freedom 2008” by The Right Trema

The Trema, (or diaeresis) punctuation mark has fallen out of favour in England in recent years. Words such as “coöperate” and “noöne” are now spelt without the trema, usually with a hyphen, leading many people to wonder what has happened to the diacritic since it left the public eye.

The truth, long denied by the Trema’s management, is that the punctuation mark split up, citing that oft-used reason, “artistic differences”. The left dot of the trema, it is believed, had wanted to continue being a diacritic, and was content to sit atop vowels, letting people know that the sounds of the letter is pronounced separately to that of the preceding vowel. The right hand dot had other ideas, however, and broke up the partnership to pursue a career in music.

Several decades in the making, The Right Trema has finally released its first album, Freedom 2008, on Glottal Stop Records. With production from Timbaland (who guests on several of the tracks), the album is a polished, well written affair with some excellent stand-out tracks.

‘U Got Me High’, a duet with Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls, is one such highlight. Slow and sexy with Timbaland’s trademark syncopated beats, the passion on show from the two singers will really make you believe that a human female could fall in love with a punctuation mark. The faster party sound of forthcoming single ‘(Everybody) Get Jumpin’’ should make it a hit in the clubs, and the electro-influenced cover of Talking Heads’ ‘And She Was’ is piece of pure pop genius that almost (almost!) improves on the original.

What lets Freedom 2008 down, however, are the tracks on which The Right Trema seems to be fixated with his status as a small dot. These songs are typically aggressive, and show no small amount of insecurity on the part of the singer. Take ‘Song for Warner’, a diss to the record label who initially refused him. The chorus, “Warner lost out by refusing me/Bitches in the office sad at losing me/Motherfuckers don’t know what I’m all about/Don’t call me no motherfuckin’ umlaut” sounds as bad in song as it does on paper. (One could say that it's as derivative as the mathematical function that uses tremas when written out by Newton.)

It’s sad that The Right Trema should have such a chip on his shoulder when the rest of his music is so good. As he stated in a recent Rolling Stone interview, if someone like Paris Hilton or Heidi Montag can release music, why can’t a tiny limbless dot with no mouth or internal functions do the same? Maybe when he is accepted by the music industry he’ll be able to released a more consistent album.

Incidentally, fans of The Right Trema may be interested to know that he has buried the hatchet with his old partner, Lefty (who has spent the last few decades working as a tittle, the dot on a lowercase letter ‘I’), and they are making plans to collaborate on a new project, the word ‘naïve’.

Freedom 2008 by The Right Trema will be released March 10th on Glottal Stop Records. A special edition microdot copy will be available from the company’s website.

Album Review: Aqua – Pseudepigraphical Laodicean Epistle

Scandinavian poppets Aqua were last heard several years ago, when they topped the charts with a series of catchy bubblegum pop songs. Most famous was ‘Barbie Girl’, their tribute to the eponymous doll and her boyfriend, Ken. After several chart topping hits, including ‘Turn Back Time’ (used in the soundtrack to the film Sliding Doors) the band disappeared from the radar, and the music press assumed that Aqua had gone the way of all those other disposable pop artists.

The truth was far different. The group have spent the last seven years working on their new album, Pseudepigraphical Laodicean Epistle. Citing a new range of influences, from Estonian composer Arvo Pärt to writer Robert Anton Wilson, they have created a vast, sprawling musical landscape in which the casual listener will probably lose themselves.

The main reason for the delay in releasing this album is the first track, ‘Dogs are Rarer as God’. Six years in the making from initial idea to finished work, the track is a five-minute musical palindrome. If you play the song backwards, it sounds exactly the same as when it is played normally. Bald songwriter René Dif managed to make this effect with painstaking sound recording techniques, sampling noises that sound the same when played both ways. The lyrics to the song – dealing with the subject of astronauts’ bodies turning to jelly after their return from the weightlessness of space – sound identical in each direction. Dif has said that his ultimate goal is to write a song that also sounds the same when turned inside out.

While ‘Dogs are Rarer as God’ is the standout track on the album, other songs give the recording a multi-layered structure that has rarely been seen outside the literary works of Umberto Eco. The title track of the album somehow manages to cover subjects as varied as apocryphal books of the Bible, Mayan fertility rituals, the paintings of Bridget Riley and TV show Deadwood, all in under four minutes. That it manages to touch on all of these subjects, form a cohesive whole and engage the listener (without overwhelming them), certainly says a lot for Dif’s skill as a songwriter.

And there are playful touches, too, which take this album in further Russian Doll territory. ‘La Dernier Chiffre Part 1’ is an homage to the Marquis de Sade sung in a mixture of Latin and English. Part 2 of the same song features Lene Nystrøm singing words that are formed by every other letter from the lyrics in Part 1. Under these conditions, the words form an entirely new subject, that of the Mexican feminist movement in the 1980s.

All this is, let’s not forget, from the same band who sang ‘We Are the Cartoon Heroes’.

The rest of the album is as detailed as a Heath Robinson illustration and as playful as a baby tiger. The only sour note on the entire recording is forthcoming single ‘I’m a Tiny Bee (Look at Me)’, which features on the soundtrack to the summer’s new Disney/Pixar movie, Insects in Space. But let’s not dwell on this, when the rest of the album is so very enjoyable, rich and totally unlike anything that any other toy-fixated Eurodance pop group has created.

Eight stars out of a possible nine.