Better Than Tek War

The Random Ten reminded me that I should mention Willam Shatner's (somewhat) new album Has Been, made in cooperation with Ben Folds among others. To put it shortly, this is the most surprisingly good album of the year. Now, I didn't say it was the *best* album of the year (which is still going to Sage Francis' A Healthy Distrust for me thus far), but given what you'd expect from a William Shatner album the fact that this is actually not just listenable but honestly good is extremely shocking. It captures the perfect blend of serious, touching, and thought provoking songs with a healthy dose of self depricating humor. Sure, there were a couple moments where I rolled my eyes a little, and I do mean a little, when it seemed like a song was a little too angsty for a celeb to be doing, but I think it's fair for most of the songs to separate the narator from Shatner and combine them in others which fixes that one little problem.

For those that don't know, most of this album consists of Shatner's spoken words on top of Ben Fold's instrumentals and as odd a concept as it might seem, it works. From the reflective in songs like "That's Me Trying" (Featuring Aimee Mann) to the farcical in "I Can't Get Behind That" (Featuring Henry Rollins), Shatner's voice is just perfectly tailored to the words coming out of his mouth.

I completely understand why the thought of this album might hit you as a really really bad idea, but trust me, it's great. At least there aren't any Beatles covers...