Ramblings about the evolving Josh

Patience.  I'm going to tell a story and then connect it up with Josh.

I'm thinking of an experience I had with my son.

My son was a child prodigy in origami. When he was 8, I took him to the expert folding group in the basement of the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The teacher asked if I thought he could keep up with an expert model. I said I thought he could

They folded the first model for an hour.  It was that complex.  My son finished first, before all the much older folders.  They were making a spider modeled on the Harry Potter ones, with a huge number of folds, then they did a second, equally complex one of the huge snake. My son kept up with and sped past all the adults who had been folding for years.

He knew how to make his own models.  He could visualize groups of folds in his head and put them together like legos.

Then he stopped.

To be fair, we met a man who had lost the use of his hands due to repetitive stress injuries from folding, which was scary.  

But also my son decided that Origami was too easy.  He wanted to try something harder.

He couldn't see that what he was doing was extraordinary.  He couldn't see that other people couldn't do it, that it was miraculous that he could.  He didn't have that sense of excitement.

I've tried to tell him that when God gives you a gift, it's wrong to just throw it away.

But he doesn't understand, even now, at 23.

I think there's something of this in what is going on with Josh now.  

When he stepped into performing music, his genius wasn't apparent to him.  It was certainly apparent to the much more experienced David Foster, who tried to make as much use of it as he could, and obviously still misses working with Josh.  It was equally apparent to the many fans who loved his work.

But Josh got bored with it.  He wanted to do something that was more challenging to him personally. 

I guess in this way, he's like my son. 

It's frustrating.  I saw the Bloomingdales concert on YouTube, tho I missed it in person, because I had my cancer surgery right during that time.  Josh showed that he still can do that stuff, the quiet emotional drama that Foster so admired.  Josh has still got it.  It's just not interesting to him.  He's like my son.  He doesn't see what was brilliant about what he did before. He's bored with it.  He wants to be challenged.

When Josh did that song on the Crazy Ones, his brilliance did come through.  You could hear his fantastic ability to convey emotions with his voice & the song was nice.  But his nerdish awkwardness also came through.  He made a weird expression with his mouth and also a weird hand position.  He might find it more challenging and interesting to try to become more a mainstream pop and rock star, but the fact that it is challenging and interesting is a reflection of the fact that it's just not his gift.

Some fans have complained that they think his acting efforts don't rise to the level of genius that his vocal recordings do.  I don't know.  I personally very much enjoy Josh's acting, tho I love his improv comedy more.  I find he's particularly good at doing broken heart.  Of course, he sings about that a lot, as well.

Still, acting is challenging for him, because it's new, because it's not what he's used to, not what he's been doing for years -- and, when something is new and challenging, it's not as polished.

He does seem to be enthralled with TV acting, which is below the intellectual level of his music.  A lot of his fans have wanted that highly intellectual music.  That's what we come to him for.  I call it music by and for nerds.

ATE also was less intellectually complex than the previous albums.  Josh hoped that would be well received.  I heard him saying to his protégées on the HBO special that simple is good, and complex is not so good.  

Yes, in the pop world, simple works; but Josh ignores the fact that that is not his fan base.  His fan base is into subtle, complex, intellectual, innovative.  His fan base is not the traditional pop fan base.

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So now on to the new singles.  It's interesting that Josh has gone into the single business model, which he previously did not use.  Perhaps this is also an example of feeling out something new and seeing if it works for him.

When Josh released "Your Hideaway," I was so happy, because I think that song does show some of the old Josh in terms of the emotional singing.  It certainly speaks to my condition.  I feel like he's singing straight to me, about my cancer.

Strangely, tho, there was almost no promotion of that song.  I guess Warner Music figured they could never make much of a splash at Christmas, so they decided to not to spend their scarce advertising dollars on it.

They're obviously pushing "Remember When It Rained," harder, perhaps feeling they've got a better shot at making a splash on Valentine's Day with two artists.

I really enjoyed RWIR in concert.  I thought it was brilliant. 

Part of that was the choreography and the light show. 

In the concert, the choreography made clear that the song is an expression of isolation -- of relationship failure -- of seeking after another who is always out of reach & walking away -- as Judith and Josh slowly followed each other around the stage without making contact.  It made positively brilliant use of the elliptical stage -- and allowed Josh to dance in his own kind of slow way, even though he either can't dance or fears dancing.

The video is somewhat different.  It follows the two singers, rather than showing the whole piece visually.  I think it loses something.   The sense of isolation -- of two ships passing in the night -- is not there.

Also, in the real concert, Judith only wore one costume for each performance and Josh's hair was only one length.  In the video, we get to see many of Judith's different costumes changes and the length of Josh's hair changes.  The audio may all have been recorded at one location, but the video was obviously at several locations. I find the changes distracting, especially the changes in Josh's hair.

The light show does not come through in the video at all.  

It's a nice arrangement that Josh did.  I'm not sure if the recording captures it all.  I'm having some hearing issues from the chemo.  It does sound better with head phones for sure.  I do have the feeling, tho, that whoever is doing the audio for Josh's recent recordings -- Rob Cavallo? --  just doesn't have the auditory subtlety of David Foster.  When I listen to the original RWIR recording, I get a much fuller audio experience.

But the arrangement from the concert is more similar to the arrangements on ATE.  It shares that very slow, definite beat.  Also we hear that beat on the "Fade Away" single that Josh worked on with the young artists.  It's like a slomo rock & roll.  There is something very intriguing about that beat.  I certainly found it hypnotic when I was in the Allen Room in February of 2013, but somehow the audio does not surround.

I am glad that they didn't use the audio from the Prudential Center, where I originally saw this performed, because Josh got too loud and drowned out Judith at some points.  Here at least they made sure that Judith didn't get drowned out.  Yet, I feel that they've just not achieved the complete auditory quality that they could have.  

Of course, I bought RWIR.  I'm a Grobanite.  But I've played "Your Hideaway" something like 150 times already in my computer's itunes.  I don't think I'm likely to play RWIR that often, even tho it is an example of Josh's New Music/Pop crossover work, which I do like a lot, precisely because it is complex and intellectual.

Ultimately, "Your Hideaway" comes straight out of the place of Josh's gift.  The ability to convey dramatic emotions with his voice, without getting loud, whereas this version of RWIR is more "art."

I don't think it's worth hoping that Josh & David Foster will get back together.  I think the politics of David changing record labels has made that too complicated.

However, I do think there is a new person on the scene who has that same very sensitive ear that David Foster has -- and which Josh & Rob, for all their obvious talent, do not quite attain.  That person is Ruslan Sirota.  I do hope that they will start making use of him more in creating new recordings, as I think it will improve the music.

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Addendum

I was just comparing this fan video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj06-8xanEE

to the official video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RudiY-rWAo

I feel that the fan video better captured the emotional dynamic of the concert experience & I like it better.  I guess the official video has the sound cleaned up a bit, but the fan video has a more live sound.