Fri, 08 Apr 2005

There I was, minding my own business. Not looking for trouble, just some nice music to share with you nice people. And one album led to another, as it tends to do. And that one led to an iTunes Essentials collection called Guilty Pleasures. I should have known better; Mom always said if you pick at an injury it won't heal. But I didn't listen then. And I'm no better now.

Most of the Guilty Pleasures were definitely the former, although I didn't think of too many as the latter. And then, on the Deep Cuts tab, I found it. On the same page as Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond doing You Don't Bring Me Flowers was the legendary album, that blast from the 60s we still joke about today: William Shatner's Transformed Man.

On the off chance you haven't heard about it, Transformed Man consists of Shatner performing dramatic readings, most famously of songs like Mr. Tamborine Man and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Why he thought Dylan and The Beatles would be improved by being recited rather than sung, one can only speculate.

I have one real regret regarding this album: that you won't be able to appreciate its true iconic power from thirty second snippets on the iTMS. The good news is that this collection of classic sixties ham & cheese is a steal at $5.94. Heck, the original cost almost that much. And that was in pre-inflationary dollars!