Appropriazione = appropriation
This is my latest YouTube revelation:
It's kind of amazing. Her ear for harmony is awesome and they're right, that progression in the chorus is something else. The singer only has about five notes -- boring ones, do-re-mi-fa-sol, but the bass line is from another planet, chromatic and menacing, and when it suddenly evaporates it's like the sun coming out.
Two things about this version bother me, though: their avoidance of the bridge (not that "to infinity and beyond" isn't a completely abysmal lyric, but I don't think you can ironically undercut a song like that as you're singing it) and the modification of the lyrics to make them whiter: sanitizing "don't be mad once you see that he want it" into "wants it," for example -- which not incidentally ruins the couplet "on it/want it," a perfect rhyme in Beyoncé's version.) Not that going to call cultural appropriation on this video -- like I said, I totally love it, and I think the medium they're creating with these covers is brilliant. But I don't think it's trivial that one of the YouTube comments was "This video helps explain why I hate all white people."
Things in the city have been uneventful: I wander around going to shows (which I am going to start writing up at some point . . .) and candlelit by-donation classes at Yoga to the People in the East Village. I also spend a lot of time developing my New Yorker magic powers, such as the ability to render homeless people invisible and issue prompt derisive comebacks whenever New Jersey is mentioned.
Yesterday I got to go to Philadelphia to play a gig accompanying Simply Barbra at a casino, which was a lot of fun but less of a break than it sounds like since I got it only because a good friend of "Barbra" happens to be a regular at the bagel store. But he might potentially use me again, which would be exciting. The highlight of the day was actually while I was wandering the streets of Philly; I ended up in this big old brownstone cathedral [cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul -- ed.], where, sneaking up to the organ loft, I met a kindly old gentleman who was kind enough to let me spend ten minutes playing with his giant old four-manual organ, which was AMAZING. It was fun talking to the guy, too; apparently his diocese or whatever doesn't treat musicians very well, and will do things like uninstalling bits of organ because they "don't look good," without consulting him, rendering whole rows of stops nonfunctional.
Disregard for future generations was kind fo a theme of my day: I'd taken the train that morning from Penn Station, which used to be one of the architectural highlights of the city until it was torn down in 1963 to make way for the glitzy sterility of Madison Square Garden. The new station is hidden underneath MSG, and it's frankly hideous: windowless, with ceilings low enough to touch, and all very scrubbed and well-lit in a bleached, soulless sort of sort way: like being inside a Hopper painting, or a Wal-Mart at night. Our driver in Philadelphia was telling us about how in the last few years a lot of the historic colonial buildings have gone the same route. I could probably think of a pithy concluding thought for this paragraph if I worked for a few minutes, but I opened the store this morning and ought to be in bed.
Click to viewIt's kind of amazing. Her ear for harmony is awesome and they're right, that progression in the chorus is something else. The singer only has about five notes -- boring ones, do-re-mi-fa-sol, but the bass line is from another planet, chromatic and menacing, and when it suddenly evaporates it's like the sun coming out.
Two things about this version bother me, though: their avoidance of the bridge (not that "to infinity and beyond" isn't a completely abysmal lyric, but I don't think you can ironically undercut a song like that as you're singing it) and the modification of the lyrics to make them whiter: sanitizing "don't be mad once you see that he want it" into "wants it," for example -- which not incidentally ruins the couplet "on it/want it," a perfect rhyme in Beyoncé's version.) Not that going to call cultural appropriation on this video -- like I said, I totally love it, and I think the medium they're creating with these covers is brilliant. But I don't think it's trivial that one of the YouTube comments was "This video helps explain why I hate all white people."
Things in the city have been uneventful: I wander around going to shows (which I am going to start writing up at some point . . .) and candlelit by-donation classes at Yoga to the People in the East Village. I also spend a lot of time developing my New Yorker magic powers, such as the ability to render homeless people invisible and issue prompt derisive comebacks whenever New Jersey is mentioned.
Yesterday I got to go to Philadelphia to play a gig accompanying Simply Barbra at a casino, which was a lot of fun but less of a break than it sounds like since I got it only because a good friend of "Barbra" happens to be a regular at the bagel store. But he might potentially use me again, which would be exciting. The highlight of the day was actually while I was wandering the streets of Philly; I ended up in this big old brownstone cathedral [cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul -- ed.], where, sneaking up to the organ loft, I met a kindly old gentleman who was kind enough to let me spend ten minutes playing with his giant old four-manual organ, which was AMAZING. It was fun talking to the guy, too; apparently his diocese or whatever doesn't treat musicians very well, and will do things like uninstalling bits of organ because they "don't look good," without consulting him, rendering whole rows of stops nonfunctional.
Disregard for future generations was kind fo a theme of my day: I'd taken the train that morning from Penn Station, which used to be one of the architectural highlights of the city until it was torn down in 1963 to make way for the glitzy sterility of Madison Square Garden. The new station is hidden underneath MSG, and it's frankly hideous: windowless, with ceilings low enough to touch, and all very scrubbed and well-lit in a bleached, soulless sort of sort way: like being inside a Hopper painting, or a Wal-Mart at night. Our driver in Philadelphia was telling us about how in the last few years a lot of the historic colonial buildings have gone the same route. I could probably think of a pithy concluding thought for this paragraph if I worked for a few minutes, but I opened the store this morning and ought to be in bed.