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I must admit to something that is surely grounds for revoking my Internet Humorist title. I have never seen a Steven Seagal movie.
At least, none I particularly remember. I think I've seen bits, random chunks from movies on TNT with titles made by arranging Magnetic Poetry pieces consisting of the words "the," "to," "die," "kill," "tough," and "velvety." But they all blur together, and I'm left with only a vague recollection of someone being kicked in the liver during the second act of The Tough To Kill Die Velvety. Perhaps this makes me the wrong person to write about Steven Seagal.
I'm a big fan of music, but my tastes seem to run counter to everyone else. I tend to be much more forgiving in some respects and apparently not nearly appreciative in others. I think the last Gorillaz album was better than the first. KISS sucks. Etcetra. I can't tell you that Band of Horses' "alternately lucid and obscure songwriting remains life-size, even as their guitars swell beyond the everyday," or even tell you what that means, but I can say that the thing that one guitarist did in that song that one time with the notes was awesome. Perhaps this makes me the wrong person to write about music.
It's with this information in mind that I set out to review Steven Seagal's debut album, Songs from the Crystal Cave.
Yes, he has one. The title sounds more like the name of a special edition Final Fantasy soundtrack, but Steven Seagal has so much ki power that it's entirely possible he can summon dragons out of the air, so we'll let it slide. His mood ring tells us that he's currently calm, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that he has trained to such a degree as to remain perfectly relaxed as he breaks a man's arm. Steven follows the grand tradition of David Hasselhoff and Alyssa Milano of deciding he can sing while not believing his can do it well enough for the ears of those who speak English; thus, the album was only made available in France. It can, however, be bought as an import at Amazon.
The album spans 14 tracks, and things start out simply enough.
1. - Girl It's Alright (sample)
Theme: Steven reassures a girl that events are operating within acceptable parameters.
Music it wants to be: Eric Clapton. And I mean post-"my kid fell out of a window" Change The World Clapton, not Cocaine Clapton.
This was the first single released in France, and immediately hit number one on the "Clubs Slows chart." I can't seem to find out anything about this chart, as Googling for "clubs slows" only leads to information about Girl It's Alright. Perhaps they invented a new chart for the song.
I expected a lot of things when sitting down with this CD. I thought there might be some laughter, might be some tears. Some learning about life and love. I did not expect, however, to listen to the first track and say "Oh." It's not bad, and one could argue it's more emotive than any acting he's ever done, but it seems so.. insubstantial. No wonder it got picked for radio play. As the first single, it also got its own video, which draws on the rich wellspring of "Thailand is pretty with has lots of reds and yellows" and has very little else to recommend it.
 
Image which best represents the song:
Steven Seagal has no teeth.
2. Don't You Cry (sample)
Theme: The girl is proving herself to be kind of high-maintenence as Steven must now keep her from crying.
Music it wants to be: Mediocre pop rock.
Track number two comes around the bend and gives us our first indication that lyrics may not be Steven's strong suit. First he declared that he's in love and gee it's special ("the kind of thing one might see in a movie", in fact), surely a bold assertion to make in the realm of pop music. Now he must reassure a girl (maybe the same one, maybe not, who knows; the guy works fast) that he's going to be around forever because he's so enlightened that he exists in every element of nature. Whether this is because his love is so strong or because he's such a martial arts master that when he finally lets someone strike him down he'll still show up to help her on Hoth is unclear.
Don't You Cry benefits from a more memorable hook than Girl It's Alright, and his raspy voice actually works to the music's advantage, but it does lose points because whenever I hear it I instinctively think Fastball's Out Of My Head is starting.
Image which best represents the song:
Steven Seagal is one with the pandas.
3. Music (sample)
Theme: If we were all just grooving together on music, there wouldn't be bad things.
Music it wants to be: A blues rock cassette someone accidentally taped some reggae over in the middle.
Thank God it's not: Madonna's Music single.
Poverty, treachery
People fixated on what they need
It ain't about you and it ain't about me
It's about us and the music will set us free
I'm pretty sure those poverty people aren't going along with you on that. Are the poor treacherous? Are they lying about being poor? Exactly what he's trying to say is hard to grasp, even moreso when Shaggy's cousin or something randomly drops in to wrench the music in another direction. This marks the first appearance of what one might call "world music" on the album, a somewhat nebulous title which generally means "black music." At least, I've never heard German oompah bands refered to as "world." I can't help but feel for the poor middle aged man who likes bad karate movies and Walker Texas Ranger, sees an album with Steven Seagal and a guitar, maybe knows of Steven's longtime affinity for blues music, and assumes it's a full CD of some good old fashioned smokey guitar tunes. You may not think this one item is such a big deal, but you haven't heard the rest of the album yet.
To learn more about world music and the strange white men who co-opt it, see: David Byrne, Paul Simon, Sting, and Peter Gabriel. Or visit your local library.
Image which best represents the song:
Steven Seagal is mildly disgusted that the diseased girl has not cured herself yet.
4. Better Man (sample)
Theme: I'm.. uh.. not good enough for you! Yeah, that's it! So.. Go the hell away!
Music it wants to be: Pop country with a gospel choir thrown in for some reason.
I wanted this to be a Pearl Jam cover, I really did. But it's an original, seeking to contend with Take A Letter Maria for the title of Shittiest Way of Dealing With A Breakup In Song. Steven says he "knows you can do better", so he insists his girlfriend/wife/mistress find a better man. He doesn't actually want to say in person, of course -- what is he, stupid? So he helpfully writes the message down and books it for warmer climes. This, to a woman who he undoubtedly told earlier shouldn't cry because it was alright and he was going to be there always. She has a problem with that? Sorry, "it's out of my hands", he says! It's an airtight defense!
Image which best represents the song:
Steven Seagal expresses sudden reservation about his choice of dates.
5. Route 23 (sample)
Theme: Life growing up was hard.
Music it wants to be: Straight blues.
What does Route 23 have to do with this?: The Blues Metaphor Preservation Act of 1972 requires all blues songs written after October 1, 2025 to include at least one reference to an old, run-down, neglected or otherwise decrepit building, motorway, overpass or similar structure to act as parallel to the singer or other subject of focus in as such as they are both in a state of physical and/or emotional disrepair as exemplified by the lyrics contained therein. (15USC6193)
Route 23 is about the singer's childhood, being poor and learning to play the guitar, and his father dying early from black lung ("got from the coal mines") and cancer ("from the steam"..? As far as I can tell, that's what he says). Of course, in actuality Steven Seagal's father was a high school math teacher, which leaves us with two possiblities:
1. Steven's dad worked in the shittiest high school in America
2. Steven Seagal lies through song
As much as I'd like to see a sequel to Dangerous Minds set in a high school in the middle of a coal mine (Note to self: pitch Dangerous Mines script to studios), I have to guess Steven's not singing about himself. That's not unusual in most forms of music, but in blues it almost seems like cheating. It's the musical equivolent of saying you have cancer so you can get a hug from Bob with Bitch Tits.
Otherwise the song is fine, but you can never quite avoid thinking about the fact that you're listening to blues from someone born in Lansing.
Image which best represents the song:
Steven Seagal can store nuts in his cheeks to carry him through the hard winter.
6. My God (sample)
Theme: If we didn't fight over religious beliefs, there wouldn't be bad things.
Music it wants to be: A freakish rock/reggae hybrid.
Maybe you don't like my skin
Or what I believe in
You don't like my prayer
You don't like the clothes I wear
How many people have to die
For what one man might think is right
The true path to life, there's more than one
Why do you force your will with a gun
Because it works so well in Steven Seagal movies?
My God is primarily notable for Steven's collaboration with Stevie Wonder, who sings and plays harmonica on the track. How exactly these two got together is a mystery, but I guess Wonder's date book is pretty clear nowadays. Maybe the two got together at their I Keep Bloating And I Don't Know Why Anonymous meeting.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal is spiritually centered so he can ponder the nature of rocks with old men.
7. Lollipop (sample)
Theme: His girl Lollipop. She makes his heart go "giddyup." RAKKALAKKABAMPABAGGABAGGAYO
Music it wants to be: UB40.
Question of the night: Who would want to sound like UB40?
Track 7 marks the midpoint of the album, and also just about the point where the album gives up the whole guitar thing and dives headfirst into its world music aspirations. Conveniently, this means more passing the mic to various rastafarians and less work for Steven. My Girl Lollipop is a cover of Bad Manners' retitled cover of Millie Small's 1964 gimmick '50s throwback ska hit My Boy Lollipop. Yeah, I didn't know ska existed in 1964 either.
I'm supposed to be reviewing these songs, but in this case you can do it yourself. Download the sample and loop it for four minutes. Rate this on a scale from 1 to crap. The only added value in this version is that none of the people involved actually sound like Millie Small.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal thinks trains are awesome.
8. Not For Sale (sample)
Theme: Steven is not for sale unless you have a soda commercial that can help him pay his rent.
Music it wants to be: Tribal.
Seagal's songs often remind me of another album I suffered through, many moons ago: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II soundtrack. I'll admit it, I bought it for the Ninja Rap. Lots of kids did, so I don't feel too bad about that. Somewhat worse, however, is that I'm probably one of three kids who bothered to listen to the rest of the tape. Anything that wasn't the Ninja Rap was a faux-hip hop feel good song from "artists" no one had heard of, rapping in only the loosest sense of the term about important things like going to school and pollution. Songs like This World from Magnificent VII:
A ghetto freight train with no name or destination
Out of control, on a track not fit to roll on
All things come to those who wait, at least that's what we're told
Tell that to somebody when they're standing in the cold
Acid rain has gone and rinsed the colour out the lies
We wash our hands with what we threw away last night
This is roughly the level lyricist Steven Seagal operates on. Flat statements that elements in society are unfair and things would be fixed if we'd all just join hands and love each other. Then they try to get poetic and you get things like that second line from the bottom. I have no idea what that means. I also don't know why they spelled color with a u. That is not the ninja way.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Segal's head is sticking out of a koala's ass.
9. Dance (sample)
Theme: They're deteriorating the farther we get into the CD. The theme here is "dance."
Music it wants to be: Bhangra.
The chorus is even more repetitive than usual, but this time it works because it's a dance song, a genre where you can record seven minutes of hitting a drum and saying ROBOT ROCK and get away with it. Plus, and this may be a personal preference on my part, Indian music is at least a more unique thing to steal than ragga.
Just to really fuck around with things, Seagal starts speaking French in the middle of the song for no reason. The best part is that he's still asking the same question he was in English during the chorus, aggressively refusing to write more than one line for this song.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal does not understand how to dance.
10. Jealousy (sample)
Theme: Steven is such a big star that people are jealous of him. Especially journalists who say bad things about him.
Music it wants to be: Dub.
Jealousy, treachery
Those who think they see what they cannot see
Wait, I thought it was "poverty, treachery." Or are the impoverished jealous too? Those damn poor people don't know when to quit. This is the first song showing Steven going on the offensive, albeit in an indirect way, speaking out against people who spread rumors in the press and can ruin people's lives. I can't off-hand think of any stories I've ever heard about Steven Seagal. He's not really gossip column material. I mean, there was that bit where Gene LeBell choked him on a movie set until he fell unconscious and pissed himself, but.. I mean stories that aren't true.
In the middle of the song, Steven decides to "break it down" with a spoken word segment.
...That's deep, Steve. The freedom to fuck us for free? Is he arguing against the first amendment?
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal is filled with righteous anger and he has a stick.
11. War (sample)
Theme: War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. This is a message that must finally be put into song.
Music it wants to be: Yet more reggae.
If you didn't already think Steven was right on the bleeding edge of the issues that affect our world today, check this shit out: "No more war, tell me what we're fighting for." I fell out of my chair and rolled 20 feet out the door and tripped my mailman the first time I heard that. Then he said "what the fuck is wrong with you" and I said "war, man, what are we fighting for" and he said "oh shit" and flew backwards 50 yards into my neighbor's hydrangea bushes across the street.
Previous songs have patterned themselves after reggae, but this song is so reggae that Seagal even takes to saying "dem" instead of "them." It's so cute. It also reminds me of a quote.
Steven Seagal is a fuck. He's a fucking shithead. With spray-on hair. He talked like he was an old slave master. ‘Hey, wassup? We's gonna have us a barbecue.' I was just like, ‘Man, who the fuck do you think you're talking to? My name ain't Sambo, nigga. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.'
And who is the angry young man responsible for that quote? None other than TV's Maya Angelou.
..No wait, it was DMX.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal gives Wyclef Jean Respek Knuckles and activates their social commentary Wonder Twin powers.
12. Strut (sample)
Theme: I will meet a woman at the club and respect her but also do her.
Music it wants to be: Song played over the credits at the end of Rize.
Dear Steven: Song titles are allowed to consist of more than one word.
When the girls start to strut
You could look at their butt
You shouldn't do that
Because her dress is just as pretty
Not just there to cover her kitty
I don't even know where to start. It is indeed true that the dress is there to cover her , which is why you should ask her to remove it first before you molest her.
This song is a collaboration with Lady Saw, known to most as "that woman talking over that one part of No Doubt's Underneath It All." I must admit that I can understand, at best, 7% of the words that Lady Saw says here. I could only understand her in the No Doubt song because they slowed her to quarter speed. I guess I'm just bad with accents. There isn't even a joke here, I just can't hear.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal does not know why he can't find a plug for his amp in the forest.
13. Goree (sample)
Theme: No clue. I have to assume something about littering causing the world's problems.
Music it wants to be: The song towards the end of the concert where the artist decides to "take it down a notch," sits down on a stool with a single spotlight in the middle of the stage and drips sweat everywhere while he shows how emotional he can be. And then come the lighters.
Goree?: Catchphrase made famous by Japanese Jim Nabors
I have no idea what language the verses are in but it sounds like Marlon Brando making baby talk. Seagal says something about slavedrivers so it's probably a song about how Seagal understands what it's like to be black.
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal makes his best effort to display an emotion.
14. The Light (sample)
Theme: Um.. The light?
Music it wants to be: Peter Gabriel. Or maybe Sting.
So named: Because you can see the end of the album coming.
He's got to have run out of steam by this point. He wants to make some vague references to light and spirit and fill it with mystic chanting fading in and out and call it a day. I know how he feels. In my soul. OoooOOoeeeEEeeooo..
Image which best represents this song:
Steven Seagal is as confused as you are.
How would I rate the album as a whole? Is there a number that represents several numbers all over the place? The term "vanity project" has usually been taken to mean a celebrity or someone else with no business in front of a microphone making an album, but in this instance it can also mean someone lacking in the ability, or maybe just the desire, to make a cohesive whole that would appeal to anyone other than himself. It's hard to imagine a person with enough of a range in musical taste, as well as a high tolerance for amateur lyrical writing, that could really enjoy the whole album all the way through. But Steven has made one very important point, and that is that he doesn't suck as much as you'd think he would.
For those of you currently feeling uneasy, now that you've heard Songs from the Crystal Cave, about facing the prospect of a world in which there's no new Steven Seagal music to look forward to, you're in luck. Next month he'll be releasing a second album called Mojo Priest, complete with soon-to-be-hits like She Dat Pretty and Talk To My Ass. I don't dare talk to your ass, Steven; I'll be too busy listening.
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