[jimberlage]

William Shatner has the most experimental, wild Spotify I've ever seen. If you haven't ever seen it, look at his discography. He does a lot of almost spoken-word poetry over soft rock, punk, etc. You get the sense that he views acting as his side hustle and is waiting for his musical career to take off.

[vunderba]

He's also (to my knowledge) one of the only major Hollywood actors to ever star in a movie filmed entirely in esperanto. I've heard that the pronunciation is rather rough around the edges though I have no way of corroborating that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubus_(1966_film)

[jimbokun]

Shatner speaks Esperanto with a perfect native accent. Everyone else is pronouncing it wrong.

[eesmith]

I know you were speaking tongue-in-cheek.

Esperanto has native speakers. Shatner is not one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Esperanto_speakers

> Native Esperanto speakers (Esperanto: denaskuloj [denasˈkuloi̯] or denaskaj esperantistoj [deˈnaskai̯ esperanˈtistoi̯]) are people who have acquired Esperanto as one of their native languages. As of 1996, there were 350 or so attested cases of families with native Esperanto speakers.[1][2] Estimates from associations indicate that there were around 1,000 Esperanto-speaking families, involving perhaps 2,000 children in 2004. ...

> some families have passed Esperanto on to their children over several generations.

[eucyclos]

My Esperanto teacher told me 'there are always a lot of marriages after Esperanto conventions '. It makes sense it would be the primary shared language of some couples

[eesmith]

The Wikipedia article points out 'native speakers have limited opportunity to meet one another except where meetings are specially arranged. For that reason, many parents consider it important to bring their children regularly to Esperanto conventions'.

[rkomorn]

This has strong Chuck Norris facts vibes.

[eucyclos]

I'd heard of this movie before and had to check it out - the scene I watched where he was speaking to who I assume is the female lead sounded like an American and an Italian both speaking perfectly passable Esperanto. If I were to nitpick his i's were a little soft - Esperanto i's are canonically pronounced ee - but Esperanto was made to accommodate lots of different accents without losing comprehensibility and it did that here. I actually found his Esperanto easier to follow than the girl's, but that's probably because I learned Esperanto from people speaking it with Canadian accents.

[peatmoss]

When I watched Incubus I remember him sounding very much like he was trying to speak Italian. My only basis for comparison are some podcasts in Esperanto I've listened to, and completion of the duolingo course (I've forgotten everything).

[wodenokoto]

His rendition of “Common People” is my favorite cover and I honestly prefer it to Pulps original.

[beAbU]

Hand to heart honest, I had a listen to this, and this is the only version I know. This was a very popular song when I was in university in 15 years ago.

I did not realize it was shatner!

[croon]

Ben Folds co-composing the album and songs featuring Henry Rollins, Lemon Jelly, etc, as well as having Nick Hornby (and I believe Aimee Mann?) on That's Me Trying is incredible, and also probably my favorite song on it.

[daveac]

Thank you. 100% agree. I would love to hear Shatner work with John Cooper Clarke

[theshrike79]

An interesting choice of words: "has the most experimental, wild Spotify" when referring to someone's discography :)

Is Spotify becoming the new Kleenex or Hoover when referring to music?

[etrautmann]

At one point he was huge into the paintball scene as well. Beyond hobby level

[squigz]

There's also the time he did spoken word Slim Shady for Futurama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqf04PAeFnE

[lores]

And Zapp's scene in the restaurant was a parody of Shatner's spoken word covers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfbsu1bbQE

[MrBuddyCasino]

Zarelli took Leonard Nimoy's 1975 audio recording of the disturbing short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” (The Martian Chronicles, 1950) and turned it into a song. I think you'll like it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ekjpJWSvY&list=RD7_ekjpJWS...

[throw0101c]

> You get the sense that he views acting as his side hustle and is waiting for his musical career to take off.

Steve Martin paid the bills with stand-up comedy and acting until his banjo career finally took off.