Gil Hates Everything

Description here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing!

I’m mildly offended that this received nominations for Best Musical. I know this is slightly like arguing for subgenres and classification, because that works so well when you’re trying to find what you’re looking for, and I also suppose that if you were real good at keeping a straight face, you could claim that building a musical out of existing songs couuuuld be construed as a very high-level version of sampling. But, good sampling recontextualizes stuff and builds a new soundscape using elements from previous ones, so I shan’t be construing that argument myself. C’mon, isn’t there something vaguely infuriating about the idea that a show which doesn’t have any original music at all can qualify for an award for Best Musical? They usually have the decency to separate out Best Revival; I’d be furious enough if a good new show was beaten out by a revival of anything, but to run the risk of being beaten by a show which puts its effort into cherry-picking popular songs as opposed to writing new ones – man, I’d go ballistic. Have an audience (or even a critical) vote for “Best Night Out” if you must, but if they ever award “Best Musical” to anything other than an original musical from the year of the awards, it’ll be time to give up and go home.

(Are we a bit tumpy this morning, Panda?)

“Swing!” features twenty-one tracks, some of which have two songs jammed into them. The arrangements are often hyperkinetic and swing-jazzy, with a super-glossy sheen; you won’t recognize a number of these songs if you’ve only heard them performed by Glenn Miller. There’s a certain smugness in the level of vocal craft on display here. Maybe it comes across as less smug when they’re performing it live. Apparently there’s also dialogue-free storytelling, as per “Movin’ Out”. My mileage varies considerably with dialogue-free storytelling, which is not to say I haven’t seen it happen. There’s an awful lot of bongos (if that helps you figure out whether the storytelling might work for you). “Bli-Blip” features the most terrifying synchronized laughter I’ve heard in years. And lots of scatting. Ooooh, and that’s a horrible version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”. You know, I’m liking this less and less as I write about it. It’s not quite as bad as trying to listen to Singers Unlimited, who are pretty much the ultimate “how talented are we, that we can reduce your favourite songs to crunchy-chorded ashes in the name of passionless jazz singing”, but the fact that that’s the nearest reference point doesn’t speak well of this project. Fortunately, even this bunch can’t quite bring themselves to fuck up “In The Mood”. But then they throw it all away by having a tap-dance break in “Swing, Brother, Swing”. When you record your musical, friends, do not put a tap break on it, or GHM will be legally permitted to take a machete to your ankles.

And, late word of advice to the arrangers, “Cry Me A River” did not need a loudly-expiring duck staggering mournfully around the soundscape. It sounds for all the world like there’s some Muppet Show sketch going on but you can’t see the screen.

It would be fair to ask: do I just hate cover versions? Well, a bit. You could quite powerfully argue that the first version of any song that you hear is likely to be your favourite, or that there are originals which are ‘made popular by’ particular arrangers, and isn’t that ‘covering;? What about that awesome Johnny Cash song “Hurt” you like so much, Gil, you know, that cover of a Nine Inch Nails song? But, I’d say in response that what I’m grumbling about is the effectiveness of the arrangement, and that’s why people say ‘made popular by’, and that’s why many covers are valueless; they’re lazy, they’re a way of you surfing on another song’s popularity and hoping that people will credit you in some way for, y’know, knowing how it goes. A faithful cover, a dull cover, a cover existing purely to sell a song in a different style, is generally pretty pointless; an exhilarating, energetic, emotional, funny, or generally well-thought-out cover (or even, sometimes, an ironic one, but let’s not enable lounge music too much, eh?) is entirely pointful, and might even have something new to say. Listen to The Stranglers covering Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By”, for example – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqfqVDHNW6c – now that’s a cover executed with talent and intent. In the case of “Swing!”, here are songs which most non-young people would know from ‘made popular by’ versions – Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Andrews Sisters, etc – so sure, you could make the (tenuous) argument that you’re introducing the next generation to these time-honoured classics – but these new versions don’t sound like they exist to do anything except give musicians and singers something to do, and frankly I’d rather musicians and singers starve than that they make money off pointless drivel. You don’t get the impression that anyone’s next meal was resting on the success of this musical direction. It’s just another Jazz Attack – rarely, if ever, good. The next generation is probably aware that you can get Glenn Miller’s Greatest Hits on iTunes, should they care.

There’s no way of telling whether there’s any point in actually watching this, beyond the fact that I’m not clear on who would like to hear these songs performed like this… it doesn’t sound like it could be as much fun as “Five Guys Named Moe”, but I suppose for people who like this sort of thing, etc etc. It didn’t attract me, so Random Panda gives it a grudging four out of ten for the soundtrack – I used to like these songs, until about eighty minutes ago – and how about we move onto the “T”s now.

On an unrelated note, here’s the Puppini Sisters (thanks Donna) singing a wonderfully threatening version of “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree”, demonstrating that it’s perfectly okay to mess with a classic if you have a plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ady1OewM8

And, because I hate you, here’s the aforementioned and much-dreaded Singers Unlimited to set our collective teeth on edge by softly killing “Killing Me Softly With His Song”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QomOCWvODDQ

(originally posted 2009)