Canuckflack

David Foster, Clowns and Mullets

// July 23rd, 2005 //

I’ve always felt ambivalent about the adult contemporary stylings of David Foster and his stable of pop stars. I might have railed about his work with Celine Dion or – god forbid – his work on a Michael Bolton (wav) album, but my natural Canadian reticence has always held me back. Still, I can’t supress a nagging thought that David Foster + Clear Channel = Ryan Seacrest.

Thank god you can turn to the JEFITOBLOG for a proper analysis. A sample:

“For all of the above, this is not an anti-David Foster post. As much as he might suck, I am absolutely unable to divorce my childhood memories from his synth-laden hits; much as I might be embarrassed by this, I can’t blame him for it any more than I can blame REO Speedwagon for the fact that I put “Can’t Fight This Feeling” on a tape for Tiffany Hansen in fifth grade. In fact, if I could assemble an all-star band to play in my living room and help me relive the years of, say, 1984-1988, it would have Foster at the helm. He’d be playing piano, manning the boards, and taking 50% of the mechanicals. The rest of the band would be rounded out thusly:

-Dann Huff on guitar
-Phil Collins on drums
-Fee Waybill on vocals

On bass? Nobody really played bass in the ’80s. You got your low end — like your “woodwinds” — by pressing a button. Foster could do it. Or maybe Jeff Bova and Jimmy Bralower. They’d play all the hits, like “Man In Motion” and “Will You Still Love Me”, and there would be a few special guests, like Richard fucking Marx. Everybody would have a mullet.”