land of the free, home of the brave
many of my friends will know that i will only admit to being a fan of a few artists, and jason mraz would be one of them. i have only been to one concert in my life, and it was jason's first visit to manila. i love his musicality: it is as if he composes for his unique style, and anyone attempting to sing his songs ought to do so with a different arrangement. there even was a time that i frequented his blog -- and that really convinced me: here was a true artist, and smart too! so i was happy to find this video of him singing the star spangled banner. it isn't the most powerful or heart-wrenching rendition of such a technically impossible song -- america's forefathers must have predicted future americans to be able to sing across nearly 2 octaves -- in fact, jason falters ever so briefly at one point, but it's very cool: aren't we tired of belters bursting their pipes to scream that high note on land of the free and home of the brave?
now while his version isn't nearly as powerful as say whitney houston's or jennifer hudson's, it certainly is better than michael bolton's. i would imagine michael to have the vocal range required to match the divas i've mentioned, but he bungles this one big time. haha. we should be kinder to christian bautista.
however, what surprised me while looking through these videos of the star spangled banner, is that charice pempengco apparently sang it during a baseball game. america is pretty strange, and i am not even prepared to comment on the patriotic underpinnings of charice singing this song (there's a line which goes: that our flag was still there), but the star spangled banner is sung to give honor to america, so i suppose it very sneakily establishes that the whole world should pay tribute to this nation. or america may just be recognizing her immense talent, and i'm just reading too much into this. note that charice is introduced as coming from the philippines. i really don't know. maybe in a few days i'll be able to form an opinion about it. i was planning on making comments about the mess martin nievera got himself into with his arrangement of the lupang hinirang.
now i'm not a fan at all of charice although i congratulate her on the fame and attention she's been getting. but listen closely to her lyrics. does she say: whose boot stripes and bright stars? and does that star spangled banner yet sway? it could be the bad audio of this video, i don't know. you be the judge.
Click to viewnow while his version isn't nearly as powerful as say whitney houston's or jennifer hudson's, it certainly is better than michael bolton's. i would imagine michael to have the vocal range required to match the divas i've mentioned, but he bungles this one big time. haha. we should be kinder to christian bautista.
however, what surprised me while looking through these videos of the star spangled banner, is that charice pempengco apparently sang it during a baseball game. america is pretty strange, and i am not even prepared to comment on the patriotic underpinnings of charice singing this song (there's a line which goes: that our flag was still there), but the star spangled banner is sung to give honor to america, so i suppose it very sneakily establishes that the whole world should pay tribute to this nation. or america may just be recognizing her immense talent, and i'm just reading too much into this. note that charice is introduced as coming from the philippines. i really don't know. maybe in a few days i'll be able to form an opinion about it. i was planning on making comments about the mess martin nievera got himself into with his arrangement of the lupang hinirang.
now i'm not a fan at all of charice although i congratulate her on the fame and attention she's been getting. but listen closely to her lyrics. does she say: whose boot stripes and bright stars? and does that star spangled banner yet sway? it could be the bad audio of this video, i don't know. you be the judge.