Glee is back finally. And for that I’m tremendously glad. It feels like forever since the first half of the season ended with that kiss between Emma and Will. (For the record, I didn’t care for that kiss at all; it was too soon. But that’s beside the point here.) And though some reactions have been mixed to the newest episode, I thought it was a strong start to the second part of the season. Unfortunately, however, the Auto-Tune usage that was rampant in the first 13 episodes looks like it will continue for the rest of the season.
Now, I guess it makes sense that the show uses Auto-Tune at least occasionally. The show does (and to a large extent, should) reflect the sensibilities of modern pop music, however misguided those sensibilities may be. And some of the show’s singers are clearly stronger than others; I realize that there are tremendous difficulties in casting a show like this. But the extra layer of artificiality caused by the usage of Auto-Tune often distracts from the music and the story. Continue reading ‘glee’s excessive auto-tune usage’
I’ve been an American Idol fan for the last couple years, but some years I’m busier than others, and I don’t always pay a lot of attention to it. DVR helps, but between being busy and watching the Olympics, I’d put Idol on the back burner. I finally got back into watching it last week and I was less than impressed on a number of levels. The contestants weren’t great and neither were the judges. I think Ellen DeGeneres is hilarious, and I absolutely loved her 2009 commencement speech at Tulane.
But I’m not totally sold on Ellen as a judge. I love her jokes, but her comments on the contestant’s performance are often a little too nice. And what music background does she have, anyway? She’s a stellar comedienne, but that’s no qualification for this show. And Kara DioGuardi is still less than outstanding. She’s not bad, but she’s not great, either. The bottom line is that the two of them combined can’t replace Paula Abdul and her drug-addled ramblings. And once Simon leaves, I fear the show will be headed way downhill. I’m sure they’ll try to pick up some curmudgeonly Brit to replace him, but I doubt it’ll work. Continue reading ‘inconsistent American Idol judges’
Think back, for a moment, to your 4th grade music class, when you learned to play the recorder. Yeah, it was a colossal waste of time. But you probably learned “Every Good Boy Does Fine” and “F-A-C-E.” Those are the notes of the treble clef. Pretty easy to remember, right? But, as you probably realized, it takes a lot of practice to get used to it, and most people probably gave up on that stupid interest and lost any interest in playing music. But there are certainly a great many music-literate musicians and singers out there, and they know that it takes time to learn something like this. And it turns out that there’s a whole host of different clefs. Any clef (there’s actually a whole bunch of them) takes some time to learn. Continue reading ‘the bass clef’
Democracy may be the best political system we have, but the notion of majority rule has often failed miserably when applied to various other subjects—for example, reality TV. With American Idol kicking off its new season this week, I’d like to look back at the travesty that was last year’s voting. How on earth did Adam Lambert lose? Continue reading ‘adam lambert’s loss’
From the day after Thanksgiving through the 12 Days of Christmas, I’m pretty much a total Christmas music junkie. That includes spending a lot of time listening to the local all-Christmas music station. I’m not usually a fan of the modern, sappy stuff; give me a centuries-old carol or at least a 40s or 50s standard. But one tear-jerking song is so deliciously terrible that a shiver of excitement runs down my spine every time it comes on the radio. I speak, of course, of “The Christmas Shoes.” If for some reason you haven’t heard it yet, please check out the music video of it on youtube and have a good laugh before reading my dissection of it. (That video features scenes from a TV movie adapted from the song.)
First, some background courtesy of Wikipedia. The song was based on an Internet rumor which was brought to the attention of a member of the Christian music group NewSong. Now, I don’t know who this group is, but Wikipedia’s page on them says that they are notable for their charity work for underprivileged children. I have no reason to doubt that the members of NewSong are fine, upstanding members of their communities who do many good things, and I applaud them for that, but does that excuse coming out with the worst Christmas song ever? You decide. And to help you make that decision, I’ve prepared a detailed explanation of just how laughably terrible this song is. Click here to read it!
When I drag myself to an audition for a musical, chances are I’m singing something that’s fifty or more years old. And the director or someone else on the casting panel will be surprised that someone my age would pick something that old. It’s because I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE! There have hardly been any good roles or songs for baritones and basses in the past thirty years. In the golden age of the musical, back in the days of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Bernstein and Jule Styne and Frank Loesser and so forth, shows usually had a good mix of roles. You’d have a leading man role for a baritone—a John Raitt or Alfred Drake or someone like that—a juvenile second lead for a young tenor. And there’d usually be a mix for women as well, maybe a nice soprano role for the romantic lead and some good character roles for altos, or maybe a nice belty Ethel Merman role. Sometimes the altos complain, but even then, they’ve got a whole nice song for it. And these days, I think it’s the sopranos who have more to complain about than the altos as far as female parts are concerned. But everything for men now is tenor, tenor, tenor, with maybe a few character parts for basses and baritones. Continue reading ‘the lack of baritone roles these days’
If you were to make a list of the most evil corporations ever, I think it’s safe to say Ticketmaster would be at the top of the list. They are truly, truly, horrendous. Just about everything they do inspires hatred. The customer service sucks, the fees are outrageous, they send me annoying e-mails every damn week, they poison cute little animals. (Okay, they probably don’t poison cute little animals.) Every time I do business with them I get the nauseating feeling of being shockingly, unavoidably screwed. I detest them. Continue reading ‘ticketmaster’
I was originally planning on doing this as a video, but after a few hilarious/awkward outtakes I decided to stick with the written word, a medium in which I am much more comfortable. (I still may attempt a remake of this blog as a Seth Rudetsky-style deconstruction video—or maybe a podcast—at some point.) Also, due to technical difficulties, cheapness, and laziness, for the time being I’m not putting up any audio clips from the cast recording. So you may want to refer to your own CD or mp3 copy (I’ll give track listings and timings), or just take my word for it from the descriptions. Continue reading ‘alice ripley's vowel sounds in next to normal’
I like “The Star-Spangled Banner” a lot. I am definitely not one of those people who wants to see it replaced by something else.* However, when the song is performed, whether at sporting events, graduation ceremonies, or anywhere else, it is most commonly performed in a manner which invites complete and utter musical disaster. More often than not a lone singer, completely unaccompanied, stands at the 50-yard line or homeplate or wherever and stumbles his or her way through a mess of a rendition. It rarely ends well.
In case you’ve made your way to this blog without knowing me, I’m a big musical theatre fan. Very big. I probably see 30 or 40 plays a year, most of them musicals, I listen to cast recordings, I take frequent trips to New York to see Broadway shows. But there are some shows I simply cannot stand. Two and a half of the most miserable hours of my entire life came a few summers ago when I was forced to sit through a youth theatre production of Cats. Now, it wasn’t the production itself that was the problem. The performers (well, the leads, at least) were all very talented, the set and lights were well done, the choreography was well executed. But how the hell this show ran for eighty million years on Broadway, I have no earthly idea. Continue reading ‘cats (the musical)’