Gil Hates Everything

Hmmmm.

(And avid readers will know what “Hmmmm” encodes ;-)

This is based on an 1891 German play which was banned for a century because it was basically about teenagers coming of age and doing a whole bunch of cumming in the process. What could make it interesting, and presumably made it very popular – it won the majority of the 2007 Tonys – is that it’s presented in a modern style, with a drum-and-guitars soundtrack and songs that wouldn’t sound out of place being sung by the bands at The Bronze in episodes of Buffy.

However, GHM never liked the bands that played at The Bronze.

Which would almost be all I’d need to say, if I was feeling especially lazy… and today for various reasons I am… because the thought of an entire soundtrack of angsty alt-rock and singer-songwriter wittering doesn’t entice me in the slightest. In the first act the songs slip past in a blurry blend of acoustic dullness. It’s not appealing. The lyrics are mostly dull as ditchwater; in that they’re perhaps a representation of angsty teens then maybe they’re fit for purpose, but they’re still dull. The presentation here definitely seems like play + songs, from the soundtrack. Dull dull dull. So far this sounds like a musical for people who like the “Twilight” movies – which also had a witheringly crap soundtrack, except for Muse.

Happily a couple of the songs rise above the fog, although it takes a while and they’re pretty rare in doing so. “The Word Of Your Body” and “The Mirror-Blue Night” have suitably poetic titles and sound passable. “I Believe” has some nice backing vocals… in fact that’s one thing you can say about some of these songs, they have okay arrangements, but the lead vocals and the monotony of the tunes are by far the biggest problem. All these songs are in 4/4, and they chug along in that well-meaning but anemic way which marks out all the stuff in the charts which isn’t produced by Timbaland or Mark Ronson. I’m reminded of the opening sequence of “Brutal Legend” where the emo-rock band tries to play metal.

In act two there’s a bona-fide good song waiting to mess you up, which is “Left Behind”, a finely-phrased funeral lament which is so good that a whole bunch of people including me have found it practically impossible to sing on occasion. It’s not impossible to write a bad elegy-as-song, so I’m pleased that amidst so many monotonous songs they didn’t screw this one up. Also, it’s in 12/8 – yay for variety. There are plenty of disses aimed at the dead son’s father in this, which give it considerable specificity, but also it’s just generally very sad, and you don’t particularly need the show’s context for it to work.

But then it’s a pity that “Totally Fucked” doesn’t live up to the title, although strangely, “blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah” is quite a good lyric, given its surrounding. And then there’s nothing until “The Song Of Purple Summer” which is supposed to be a big emo ending, and has some nice-ish harmonies. It sounds like it belongs in “Hair”, if that helps any.

So here’s the problem. This isn’t at all my thing, but I presume we’re to think that this kind of music is very popular, otherwise it wouldn’t keep being used in everything from tween-targeting movies about twattish vampires through to all those fucking irritating cellphone ads that plague us before they bother to show us the movie we paid to see down at the theatre (“Scotiabank: we’re richer than you think”). So if it means loads of cash-spending kids show up to watch what they try to deny to themselves is a musical, then great, I suppose. But for me it’s pretty much totally shit, and the problem lies foursquare with the vapid lyrics and especially with this fucking turgid musical backdrop.

It’s been excellently said (by Grant Morrison) that when Grandad tells you that he can’t keep up with the fast transitions and noisy music on Top Of The Pops or MTV or whatever, the only rational response is “Fuck off, Grandad”. Well, that’s fair enough if the problem is a genuine inability to understand something and an outright refusal to try, but I still have plenty of time for modern music – just not for this. So I reckon this is a simpler case: it just isn’t very good. But it’s all broody and meaningful, and the audience for that probably adores it. Meanwhile, I certainly plan to fuck off if “Spring Awakening” shows up around here, because, as I imagine I’ve established by now, it doesn’t interest me musically in the slightest. (Except for “Left Behind”, and I’m cool with my memories of that song.) So, if you think that Grandad should fuck off on this occasion, it probably gets a solid eight, but Random Panda’s honest reaction is to award the “Spring Awakening” soundtrack two out of ten pieces of bamboo, and wish that this style of music was what got left behind.

(originally posted 2009)