I am still torn as to what I think about the various pop-Celtic programs that have been around lately. I was never one of the critics grumbling about the lack of cultural authenticity in the music of the Irish Rovers, and frankly I prefer quite a few of their interpretations of traditional Irish tunes over the more traditional arrangements other groups produced. It's easy in today's America-bashing environment to get caught up in non-American music for all the wrong reasons, and I know quite a few people who have been listening to 'world music' for just those reasons. I am currently in a sort of British roots kick that has everything to do with my genealogy research. Knowing where on those islands many of my ancestors lived, I would like to have a mental image of what their lives were like. What did they think about and read and listen to? Thus the YouTube browsing for traditional Celtic music.
Of course, music is not dead, the way ancient history and Latin are. Celtic music is constantly being remade, and some of the newer stuff is quite good. I have reconciled myself to the fact that the Celtic Thunder singers are entertaining and made some good music. Their live video recording of "Caledonia" is by far my favorite, so far, and I have listened to practically every recording of this song on the Internet in making that ranking. The High Kings, a group also linked to this pop-Celtic entertainment spectrum, is also quite good, and I do hope they continue to record together.
I am not so sure, though, about Celtic Woman. My biggest issues with this program have to do with their choice of songs, and here I am confronting the question of song standards. On the one hand I know many songs from recent decades that are known independent of their writers and of any person who sang them. I've heard enough versions of "Sentimental Journey," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and just about anything else Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby ever sang that I would have to google those songs to find out who actually recorded them first or where they came from. Yet, I find it very hard to imagine songs I know Josh Groban recorded, and especially songs he wrote, being picked up by other singers. It was annoying listening to Rhydian Roberts singing Mr. Groban's songs, even though Rhydian has such a similar voice that his versions of those songs seemed more like poor copies of what I'd already heard.
Celtic Woman, though, takes a bunch of women I've never heard of, and has them sing insipidly sweet versions of all sorts of songs, very few of them having anything to do with Celts. After watching Josh teasing the anthem aspect of "You Raise Me Up," I can't help but laugh a little when I hear that song, but when these ladies sing it, and yes I am listening to their version now, that anthemic pop song becomes this sort of heavenly choir singing elevator music instead. Panis Angelicus turns into something similar in their hands. This production has also included "Ave Maria," "The Prayer." Add to this the Rhydian Roberts recordings of "To Where You Are," "The Prayer," and "Anthem," and its starting to seem like this cheap imitation idea is getting too much popularity for what it's worth. It's not, after all, like these guys are on par with the Beatles, having recorded so much that if there are a few remakes, there are so many originals among them. These remakes are all these folks seem to do.
But, on the other hand, every song is written by someone, and certainly not all of the material in Josh Groban's first album was his, first. "The Prayer" was certainly not new, nor was "Vincent." And he's gone on to write his own songs, making his own original music, much of which may last long enough for people to be remaking it long after he's gone. And Ella Fitzgerald was 'just' a singer, not a songwriter. We don't dismiss her as cheap because she recorded songs people had heard before. I think it was in an interview of David Foster that the idea was mentioned of Josh fitting into a particular musical niche, that he could make it as a balladeer, because even with a glut of pop singers, we really had no one doing ballads any more, and the idea of a standard song is part of that tradition. Maybe we, as a culture, are forgetting just a bit how that part of music making works. In our concern over digital copyright protections and our unfulfillable taste for novelty perhaps the idea of a song as common culture is in need of rehearsal.
No comments:
Post a Comment