"O, Mickey, Where Art Thou?"...Good question!

[Gurgitoy2]

I bought this CD last night, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed with it. It's ok, but not nearly as good as the original "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" that it was trying to emulate. It sounded very similar to the "Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney" CD to me.

I did like the Stonewall Jackson track "The Bare Necessities". In fact, it made me think of the Country Bear Jamboree...if they had ever done an update, this song would have been a perfect fit!

Anyway, I just wish the producers of this album let the artists go wild with the material. Much of the stuff sounded similar to the original material with just a banjo and fiddle added...

It just doesn't seem like Disney is willing to take risks when it comes to the US music releases. I wish they would follow the Japanese lead, and throw caution to the wind when it comes to taking liberties with the music. Sure, some of the Japanese CD's are WAY out there, but on the whole, I have to say that they are much riskier than any of the US counterparts. Take "Bossa Disney" and "Readymade Digs Disney" as examples. Both are great CD's and take a lot of liberties in interpreting the songs. When have you ever heard "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" sung as if it were done by Betty Boop?? It seems like they just had fun with it, and it worked.

"O, Mickey, Where Art Thou?" seems to be bogged down with the same old "don't stray too far from the source material, or we might scare them away" attitude...

Anyway, that's just one person's opinion, but I needed to get that off my chest.

Ben C.

 

[Michael Zielski]

Almost forgot to get back on this topic.......

Interestingly, picked this CD up several weeks ago. My wife and I enjoyed it on first listen, but even then I remember her remarking that some of the covers, like "When She Loved Me," sounded quite like the originals. And since then, I think it's been played maybe twice--and I do enjoy bluegrass. But I have to agree, as you said, Ben, that most of the covers here sound fairly close to the originals, other than the banjo playing being substituted for whatever instrumentation there was originally. And if that's the case, I simply just prefer the original(and not the "fake" song, as my son likes to call the cover versions). I did, though, enjoy "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah"'s lazy feel, and I also haven't seen "When I See An Elephant Fly" covered. A CD of cover songs I have gone back to is the WDW 25th Anniversary album--I like Patti Davis's rippin' R & B version of "Zip-A-Dee-Do-Dah," and, of course, Tim Curry's "Davy Crockett"(looking for his Zippo to light the campfire--now that's a little Disney risk-taking!).

All in all, I'd prefer that the time, effort, and money be invested in regular resurrections of some musical vault treasures, than in somewhat interesting collections of song covers.

Mike.