Customer Reviews

Out Of This World

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First off, I'm a big Star Trek fan. Have attended conventions (back in the 70's), know every original series episode by heart. However, I'm also a musician and music lover.

This is a terrible, terrible collection of songs. Nichols' voice is adequate; that's not the problem. I don't know the story of how this album got produced, but the songwriting in it is so embarrassingly poor that it puts a huge mark of shame on the otherwise distinguished career of Ms. Nichols. The production sounds like it was done on someone's PC, and is likewise extremely amateurish.

Please do her a favor and don't buy this. Listen to this clips provided here and you'll see what I mean. How sad.

...then come sit by me and we'll pop this in the CD player. The production is atrocious and the lyrics are cheesy and embarrassing, but I just can't help liking it. Highlights are the title track, where Nichols appears to simulate an orgasm, and "Star Rock" which is just a terrible, but still somewhat compelling, song.

Here we have an album by Star Trek's "Uhura". Sure, she can sing, but to be perfectly frank, most of the songs here aren't very good. Most of them have "outer space" themes, and they are pretty cheesy. And can you handle TWO versions of Nichelle's tribute to Gene Roddenberry?(one is sung, one is spoken, both have the same backing track.) The CD concludes with a 25 minute interview with Nichelle, which is sort of interesting to hear once, but I can't imagine too many people will want to hear it more than once. This CD will really only appeal to Star Trek fans, who of course are the only ones who would buy it anyway.

While Nichelle Nichols voice is as lovely as ever, the production on this CD is just awful! It is just about un-listenable. When listening to the version of the Star Trek theme song on this CD, I couldn't help but think of Bill Murray on SNL doing his bad lounge singer routine when he sang "Star Wars"...this song is just as bad. If you want to check out Ms. Nichol's singing, do yourself a favor and buy "Down to Earth" instead...that CD is the way she was meant to be heard.

Nichelle Nichols, best know for her work on Star Trek, is charming on "Out of This World". Nichols, who once toured with Duke Ellington in the 1950's, jumps all over the musical map. Everything from pensive ballads, the wonderful and emotional "Gene", to all-out rockers, like the spellbinding "Ancestry". This song is a classic that should have found a home on alternative rock radio. Her delivery is almost punk-rock in it's unique phrasing. Very refreshing indeed! If you appreciate alternative music, you'll just love this album! I only wish she was still recording!

Nichelle Nichols is a respected artist, known mainly for Star Trek's delightful Houra. If you want to buy an album of some very good songs from her, better look for the Creation records / Rev-Ola compact disc re-issue of the 1968 recording "Down To Earth". A smasher. Check it out!

Being both a Trekkie and someone who enjoys cheeseball entertainment, I decided to grab Nichelle Nichols' `Out of This World' CD. I was hoping to be entertained by it like I was by the hysterically awful records that Trek co-stars William Shatner & Leonard Nimoy had put out more than two decades earlier. Sadly, this was not the case: unlike Nimoy & Shatner's releases, which were bad in a funny way and really good for a goof, Ms. Nichols' CD was just plain bad! Her tribute tune to the late Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is so appalling, I could just imagine him turnin' in his grave (which would be an amazing feat, since he was cremated) when this dreck hit the streets! And her little song that goes with the original Star Trek opening theme will make you wanna beam this CD right outta your player and toss it into the nearest dumpster at warp speed!

If you want Trek-celeb-crooned tunage that is bad yet still fun to listen to, take a look at Shatner's `The Transformed Man', Nimoy's `Highly Illogical' compilation, or Brent "Data" Spiner's `Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back', and avoid this musical atrocity like the plague!

`Late

While Nichelle Nichols has a beautiful voice this CD makes the vocal stylings of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy seem positively polished and understated by comparison.

Seriously.

I was a "Star Trek" fan when I was a kid, and have over the years developed a penchant for peculiar outsider music, so after hearing the other "Star Trek" albums and being hopelessly amused by them I had to investigate this one. The reason I hadn't gotten around to it earlier, you see, is that I expected it to be much better than the Shatner and Nimoy recordings, and thus, less entertaining as kitsch. Boy was I ever wrong. The problem here isn't so much that Nichelle has a bad voice or is a terrible singer (neither is true,) but the material and production are extremely amateurish.

The album consists of nine songs, one poem, and a long interview. The interview is interesting enough to sit through once if you are interested in "Star Trek," but the songs are what really makes this into a monstrosity. The concept album is always hard to pull off, and the pervasive theme here is (surprise!) space. Pink Floyd fans can relax: "The Wall" is not going to be bested by this album. More surprisingly, neither will Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 frightfest, "The Original Monster Mash:" I would rather listen to "Blood Bank Blues" by Pickett 100 times than to listen to Nichol's "Star Rock" ever again.

The songs span many musical genres, but what they have in common (besides the space theme) is that the sound quality is awful and the instrumentals are beyond cheesy. Think lots of early-generation drum machines and electronic keyboards. The disco synthesizer-intensive "Star Rock" is probably my least favorite song on the album, and is, believe it or not, about hydroponic farming in space. The excited chorus contains endless variations on the line "There's nothing in the world like an Agronaut!" An Agronaut? Yes. On the other end of the cosmos is the ballad "Gene" dedicated to the visionary creator of "Star Trek" Gene Roddenberry. She likes this song so much that she sings it once and then speaks the exact same lyrics over the backing track and calls it a poem later on. Two versions for the price of one!

The rhythm-impaired "Hauntingly" takes as its muse tribal music from some distant part of the Crab Nebula apparently, and involves a number of high notes that Nichols has absolutely no business exploring. "Ancestry" is no better, pairing a very basic rhythm track with ridiculous lyrics jammed in to the music with little thought for the concept of meter. "You're Out of This World" is a Rasta-tinged electronic ballad of extraterrestrial romance, while "Rock the World" is a horrible techno song that reminded me of "We Built This City," only infinitely worse. (Yeah, I didn't think that was possible either.) Finally, for all you Trekkies and Trekkers, Nichelle presents a punched-up version of the "Theme From 'Star Trek'" complete with lyrics that should never have seen the light of day (be forewarned that only dogs can hear all of the final note.)

Despite being one of the worst recordings I have ever heard, I gave it two stars for two fundamental reasons: first, Nichols seems sincere and makes as much with this material as anyone could, and with the credibility of having been Lieutenant Uhura; second, there is some absurd pleasure to be gained for those who appreciate outsider music, bad music, and high camp. This is an extremely difficult CD to listen to, but if you enjoyed the songsterings of other "Star Trek" veterans for what they are, you will likely appreciate this too.

The item was exactly as expected and I received it quickly. Thank you for a wonderful purchase.