Send "William Shatner " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 As PopMatters’ Mike Schiller wrote of William Shatner’s Has Been in 2004, “somehow, it just might be the pop album of the year”. It was sweet, genuine, and engaging; Shatner’s take on “Common People” alone was worth the price of admission. Has Been wasn’t perfect, but it was a marked change for Shatner, whose musical “legacy” at the time was basically limited to the cringe-worthy 1968 album The Transformed Man and the iconic 1978 live cover of “Rocket Man”, which has been parodied so many times that I’ve met people who don’t realize it was something that actually happened.Seven years after the unexpected success of Has Been, Shatner is back with Seeking Major Tom, a collection of spoken-word science-fiction covers. A collection, I should mention, which Shatner initially passed on because the very idea of Captain Kirk yelling over “Spirit In The Sky” was (and is) exploitative. In the 20-minute YouTube documentary hyping the album’s release, Shatner says that after some soul-searching he had an alternate idea: a collection of songs centering around the mythical figure of Major Tom. Plenty of songs have been written about him, starting with David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, but no one has told the full story of Major Tom after he loses contact with ground control—floating away into space utterly alone, reflecting on his life, meeting his fate. Listening to Shatner speak about it is powerful, but the chosen tracks in the order presented on Seeking Major Tom fail at the basic task of telling the story in the same meaningful, succinct way. Instead, there are good ideas floating in a morass of tangentially-related songs, all put together in an incomprehensible arrangement and packed with sampled NASA chatter and reprises (including three tracks in a row which all end with a reprise of “Space Oddity”) to cover 95 minutes over two discs....full text |
| Covermesongs |
| It’s a rare enough thing to get a full covers album based on a conceptual theme. It is a once-in-a-lifetime cover album when that theme is space and the artist is the man who has boldly gone where no man has gone before. Canadian-born actor, musician, author, producer, and director, William Shatner, aka Captain James T. Kirk from the ’60s TV series Star Trek, is that man. Set for release this Tuesday October 11, Shatner’s Seeking Major Tom will be available as a one volume digital download, two CDs and three vinyl LP set. The album is being released along with his new book Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large. Last month when we brought you a preview of Shatner doing Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” feat. ex-Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde, we knew this album was going to be something special. Besides Wylde, the all-star cast of guest musicians includes Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ritchie Blackmore, Lyle Lovett, Steve Miller, Peter Frampton, as well as members of The Strokes, The Kinks, Tangerine Dream, Alice In Chains, Deep Purple, Yes, MC5 and more. Shatner has chosen to cover a selection of the galaxy’s greatest hits by David Bowie, Queen, Deep Purple, Elton John, Pink Floyd, U2, Black Sabbath, The Police, and more The first word that came to mind when reading the line-up of guest artists and the list of twenty galactic anthems covered was “Epic.” With his patented dramatic-pause, spoken word, interpretive delivery, Shatner has produced what could be the pièce de résistance of his 40 plus year musical career....full text |
| Wired |
| On his new album Seeking Major Tom, William Shatner sing-talks his way through some of rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous space-themed songs. Released Tuesday, the record features covers of tunes by everyone from Deep Purple to Black Sabbath (yes, “Iron Man”), as well as the track that started it all — David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” The concept album was spawned from the ashes of an attempt to produce a broader sci-fi-themed record, a project Shatner turned down. The Star Trek star was throwing out lyric sheets for that album when he saw a pattern. “I began to see a connection that I had never thought of before,” Shatner says in a promotional documentary for Seeking Major Tom. “The connection was that a half a dozen songs have been written about Major Tom, starting with the David Bowie song. Every song has an element in it that spoke to me about what Major Tom was doing.” From that kernel of an idea, he went on to record very Shatner-esque versions of tracks like Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” and Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” But the most ambitious tune on Seeking Major Tom is Shatner’s cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”...full text |
William Shatner lyrics
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