Word: songfulness
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Nearly a decade ago, my parents came back from a trip with the music to the musical “Rent.” I was hooked. I quickly memorized the lyrics, the plot, the little quips between songs. When my parents came to Cambridge last week for Thanksgiving, we saw the new “Rent” movie, and I loved it. I’m not gonna lie: I blubbered for most of the film. I fell for every cheesy line and every truly beautiful song. There’s just one problem: much of the film?...
...same American soprano who got booed at Milan's La Scala a few years ago went to Paris recently to receive the Légion d'Honneur. After recording three new albums - the jazz-inspired Haunted Heart, the Strauss opera Daphne and a collection of sacred songs - Renée Fleming, 46, spoke with Time's Terry McCarthy about practicing in front of the mirror and learning to sing in Elvish. You have a Christmas album? Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc. Only now it's called a sacred collection. My father was a choral master...
...jammed. Near the village of Yuliu, downriver from Harbin, someone took it on himself to post a homemade sign near the river. "The water has poison," it read. "Don't drink it or fish in it." To help restore a sense of trust, Heilongjiang's top official, party secretary Song Fatang, announced that once the toxic slick has passed the city and the water supply has resumed, "I'll have the first mouthful." But it isn't just China's rivers that need cleaning up. So does the process by which authorities tell citizens the truth about risks to their...
...Dawn. For their fifth single, the Seasons team produced a masterpiece. Anyway, their apotheosis. Since the simple days of "Sherry," Crewe and Gaudio had been listening to Phil Spector's productions for the Crystals and Ronettes; the arrangement is both burlier and more complex. The song begins with a snatch of spoken doggerel ("Pretty eyes of midsummer's morn, / They call her Dawn"). Then the drummer has a quick snit fit, and organ and chimes lead into the plaint, "Dawn, go away, I'm no good for you," as a guitar strums 2/4 Latino figures. There are six different melodic...
...played, finally (after a buildup longer than the one for Mother Bates in Psycho), and voila, it's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," Valli's longest-lived hit and, musically, one of Gaudio's least surprising Seasons creations: standard, nicely orchestrated Europop, a plain old love song, with no grudges or class animosities. (But don't listen to me. It's among the ten most played songs of the 20th century.) Family crises become song cues: Frankie's daughter dies of drugs, he sings "Bye Bye Baby." And at the end, the showman must...