Word: songfulness
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...last year, Serbia the year before, and Ukraine finished second both times. It may seem like sour grapes, but commentators from losing countries (the U.K. finished last in 2008) have consistently complained that the public phone vote used to determine the winner has ensured that historical ties always trump song quality. An entry from Greece, for example, could still earn top points from Cyprus, even if the song is painful to listen to. (See a TIME package on loving Eurovision...
...gift and humanism to Shakespeare's. Both men, he says, are "fascinated with the contradictions of human beings, with their complexities and ambiguities. As with Shakespeare, there's heightened poetic expression in Sondheim, but when you dig into it, you find it's in touch with something real." The song "Send in the Clowns" contains not just pretty lyrics, but musings perfectly pitched for the character of Desirée, a glamorous actress pushing 40 and facing what may be her last chance for love. "The cadence, the vocabulary, the incidences in the music, a pause he's written...
...first five days of Night Music rehearsals, Nunn had the cast speak - not sing - the lyrics. He found that, unlike the numbers in most musicals, they didn't stop the show, but rather carried it on, each song a little scene in its own right, deepening the characters while advancing the plot. "I approach characters like an actor approaches them," says Sondheim. "With the risk of only slight exaggeration, by the time I have written a score I know the book better than the author does. I've examined every word, and why [a character] says...
...course the song that made her famous is among the most miserable of show tunes, sung by a broken, destitute girl: "I had a dream my life would be/ So different from this hell I'm living/ So different now from what it seemed./ Now life has killed the dream I dreamed...
Idol is a reliable source of platinum talent largely because the talents it produces--Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood--respect the conventions of its genres. They are nice singers who sing nice songs nicely. Lambert, 27, may have the best chops of the bunch (his ability to hold high notes recalls Grace Slick in her prime), but where he really outshines them is in self-awareness. While his peers act as if being plucked from obscurity to sing in prime time is normal, he understands that he's on a television show, where acting normally would be completely abnormal...