American Idol
Mar. 26th, 2008 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amandac777I just finished watching last night's American Idol performances (hurrah for DVR!), and the deeply cynical part of me found Kristy Lee Cook's 'patriotic' performance and the judges' responses to it rather interesting, with a particular fun catch for different branches of the English language.
So Kristy, given the choice of any song written in 1984, performed "God Bless the USA", by Lee Greenwood. Not "God Bless America", which is an old (and boring) patriotic song best noted for alternate versions involving holey underwear and the like, but the one that goes "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free."
Personally, I know that song almost entirely from the first Gulf War. I was in 5th grade, the concept of being at *war* was terribly freaky, and my elementary school was overcome by a massive rush of patriotism. This included playing extra patriotic songs over the PA system in the mornings (we already got the Star-Spangled Banner, immediately followed by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, on a daily basis), bad attempts at writing poetry, and special assemblies with even *more* patriotic music. "God Bless the USA" figured heavily, and every kid in my class knew every word to the chorus and both verses.
It's actually not that bad a song, musically. Kind of catchy. But it heavily features my least favorite thing in music, which is painfully obvious emotional manipulation. All music is designed to manipulate emotions to some extent, but it's usually reasonably subtle, or just goes for general moods. This one uses every imaginable trick -- unnecessary brass instrumentation, modulation, cymbal crashes, dramatic stops -- to pull on your heartstrings and get you standing there, head held high. And that's before you even consider the lyrics, which couldn't be more patriotic (and for the most part, more trite), if a Congressional committee hired people to write them.
So yeah, Kristy performed that one. She's barely survived the last two weeks (and two weeks ago, really, really shouldn't have), and she picks a song that shamelessly plays on patriotism to bring you to emotional highs. I thought it was kind of like a choir ending a performance on the Hallelujah chorus -- no matter how mediocre your performance is, you're *going* to get a standing ovation, because what are they going to do, sit back down? -- except in this case, you didn't actually get the Hallelujah chorus out of it. She actually sang it quite well, but I couldn't get past what seems like blatant manipulation of the audience -- how are you supposed to be against it? The audience gave her the loudest cheer of the night, which probably had relatively little to do with the quality of singing. Randy and Paula both praised her to the skies, including talking about how great that song is.
Usually, this is exactly the sort of bubble that Simon loves to pop. When contestants have sung things with religious overtones, for instance, he'll make a cynical comment about their choice, or call it self-indulgent. Simon annoys me more often than not, but I do actually appreciate that aspect of him. So he comes on and calls her brilliant. Says it was her best performance ever. And while she's jumping up and down (literally), and I'm disappointed that no one's even hinting that it was manipulative, Simon adds that it was "the most *clever* song choice I've heard in years." Ah. Correct me if I'm wrong (if any Brits have made it this far through my rambling), but doesn't the word clever have a very different meaning in British and American English? In both, it means smart. In American, the connotation is insightful, grasping things that other people might miss. In British, if I understand correctly, it means sneaky. Using your intelligence for underhanded means. Maybe Simon thought exactly the same thing I did about that song choice, and managed to say so without offending the entirety of Middle America (but also without calling her on it at all).
In other news, I'm really stunned at how little grading I've managed to accomplish in the last 48 or so hours. I should be done, not barely started. Wouldn't be so bad if I had done anything else useful in that time span, but no.
So Kristy, given the choice of any song written in 1984, performed "God Bless the USA", by Lee Greenwood. Not "God Bless America", which is an old (and boring) patriotic song best noted for alternate versions involving holey underwear and the like, but the one that goes "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free."
Personally, I know that song almost entirely from the first Gulf War. I was in 5th grade, the concept of being at *war* was terribly freaky, and my elementary school was overcome by a massive rush of patriotism. This included playing extra patriotic songs over the PA system in the mornings (we already got the Star-Spangled Banner, immediately followed by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, on a daily basis), bad attempts at writing poetry, and special assemblies with even *more* patriotic music. "God Bless the USA" figured heavily, and every kid in my class knew every word to the chorus and both verses.
It's actually not that bad a song, musically. Kind of catchy. But it heavily features my least favorite thing in music, which is painfully obvious emotional manipulation. All music is designed to manipulate emotions to some extent, but it's usually reasonably subtle, or just goes for general moods. This one uses every imaginable trick -- unnecessary brass instrumentation, modulation, cymbal crashes, dramatic stops -- to pull on your heartstrings and get you standing there, head held high. And that's before you even consider the lyrics, which couldn't be more patriotic (and for the most part, more trite), if a Congressional committee hired people to write them.
So yeah, Kristy performed that one. She's barely survived the last two weeks (and two weeks ago, really, really shouldn't have), and she picks a song that shamelessly plays on patriotism to bring you to emotional highs. I thought it was kind of like a choir ending a performance on the Hallelujah chorus -- no matter how mediocre your performance is, you're *going* to get a standing ovation, because what are they going to do, sit back down? -- except in this case, you didn't actually get the Hallelujah chorus out of it. She actually sang it quite well, but I couldn't get past what seems like blatant manipulation of the audience -- how are you supposed to be against it? The audience gave her the loudest cheer of the night, which probably had relatively little to do with the quality of singing. Randy and Paula both praised her to the skies, including talking about how great that song is.
Usually, this is exactly the sort of bubble that Simon loves to pop. When contestants have sung things with religious overtones, for instance, he'll make a cynical comment about their choice, or call it self-indulgent. Simon annoys me more often than not, but I do actually appreciate that aspect of him. So he comes on and calls her brilliant. Says it was her best performance ever. And while she's jumping up and down (literally), and I'm disappointed that no one's even hinting that it was manipulative, Simon adds that it was "the most *clever* song choice I've heard in years." Ah. Correct me if I'm wrong (if any Brits have made it this far through my rambling), but doesn't the word clever have a very different meaning in British and American English? In both, it means smart. In American, the connotation is insightful, grasping things that other people might miss. In British, if I understand correctly, it means sneaky. Using your intelligence for underhanded means. Maybe Simon thought exactly the same thing I did about that song choice, and managed to say so without offending the entirety of Middle America (but also without calling her on it at all).
In other news, I'm really stunned at how little grading I've managed to accomplish in the last 48 or so hours. I should be done, not barely started. Wouldn't be so bad if I had done anything else useful in that time span, but no.
