Word: sung
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...some of the fault, I think, lies in the original script, which might be hefty enough for a sung-through opera but here seems too thin to live up to its ambitions. I don't expect a stage musical about street gangs to have the grit or nuance of the better Hollywood films of the same era, like Blackboard Jungle or Rebel Without a Cause (though a cast of gang members who didn't look like they stepped out of a Chorus Line audition might help). But I do want a love story with at least a hint of conviction...
...then there's the sticky case of Russia's entrant this year. The winner in the national finals was Anastasia Prikhodko with her song "Mamo," sung in a combination of Ukrainian and Russian. Some of the lyrics were written by an Estonian, the music was written by a Georgian and the song is performed by Prikhodko, who is Ukrainian. This combination horrifies Russian patriots, as Russia has had major political conflicts with Georgia, Estonia and Ukraine in the last two years. Prikhodko's producer Konstantin Meladze insists, however, that her song should inspire friendship between the four countries...
...brings is an opener, "Sabali," so light and giddy that no translation is required to get that Mariam is whisper-singing about love. The swirling keyboards and gradually rising dance beat are pure '80s pop, sweeter than cheap champagne--but with soul; it's like a Cyndi Lauper tune sung by Vera Hall...
...lyrics tend toward uncontroversial declarations like "Hypocrisy in politics, it's not good/ We don't want any." (It's possible the lyric sheet was simplified in the translation from Bambara and French; it's also possible they're just casual lyricists.) The exception, linguistically, is "I Follow You," sung by Amadou to his wife in tender, halting English: "Under the sun, baby, I follow you/ Under the ground, baby, I follow you." As Amadou told a British music magazine, "We would like English-speaking people to understand us. It's not a large vocabulary, but our heart...
...down the far ends of the pews. All empty. Daddy didn’t have a hymnal either but he was looking on with Mrs. Hannway. The same thing for the stranger on my left.I really did try worshipping with everybody else. But I hadn’t actually sung the song for a year or two (or five...not since ’61?). And the more I tried to sing, the less I knew, and the sorer I got. All I could do was loll there, dead in the water like some windless sloop. But didn?...