Glory- really a terrible song

[wilt the stilt]

Honestly, that song sucks. totally overblown. It won't be remembered at all.

[bigwillq]

1. I love it.

I love John Legend, and Common is very good too.

[edhopper]

2. Agreed

Pretty powerful. Even the rap, and I don't like rap.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

12. I love John Legend,

but Glory simply isn't his best work, imo.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. An incredible song. The only one that gave me goosebumps over the last couple of years of song

nominations.

[wilt the stilt]

4. just hum it

nice melody? would you buy it? A great song is one like "My favorite things" where Julie Andrews can sing it and John Coltrane can interpret it into a jazz classic that is remembered for 50 years.

[bigwillq]

5. Yes (nt)

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. You betcha.

I would totally buy it.

[MuttLikeMe]

6. I love it

powerful song. Glad it wont the Oscar.

[liberalhistorian]

21. It was, indeed, very powerful.

And that's what the best music is, powerful and moving, no matter the type.

[longship]

7. Well, there's the problem of Hollywood being stuck in Pop music.

Horrors if they ever got a hold of Rap, Hip-Hop (or whatever it's called these days). Pop is milk toast and Rap is noise.

Mozart and Bach are music. And Brahms, and Puccini, and Shostakovich, and Berg, and, and, and. All serious music, not some fluff, or a lot of noise. And heavens, not John Williams, who writes the same music score for every film.

My favorite film composer is Bernard Hermann, who really stretched things. And don't get me started about Andre Previn, who was music director of the London Symphony Orchestra for many years and left Hollywood for a glorious serious music career. Try his complete recording of Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet some time. Wow!

Or, just watch Amadeus again, to see what music really is.

Watching the Oscars tonight is like celebrating mediocrity.

[Oklahoma_Liberal]

9. Thank you for defining "real music" for us simpletons.

You're doing God's work.

[longship]

11. I merely am defining rubbish music.

Hollywood is still stuck in popular music, when there is a whole world of music. Not just loud guitars and manic drums (horrors! Whiplash) or screaming louder means better, amplified by big amplifiers and speakers.

Pop music utterly sucks. It's noise.

Music is dynamic, with both soft and loud, with both fast and slow. It's not just belting it out, or melting people's ears.

Try Bach's Goldberg Variations some time. I recommend Glenn Gould's 1955 recording.

Music at its most sublime.

If there is a God (which I doubt) she is a God of music.

Try Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro sometime, hopefully laughing your ass off with its humor. Or Puccini's La Boheme ending with tears in your eyes. Or awed by Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem, a secular piece. Or travel to the South Pole with Robert Falcon Scott by listening to Vaughan Williams' Symphonia Antarctica, chilled to the bone, as was literally Scott's party.

The musical world is wide and deep. And I love most of it. But I do not like those pretenders who think that pop music is all there is.

Real music includes everything.

Duke Ellington said it best. If the music sounds good, it is good.

Sorry. I just do not like Hollywood milk toast. They've been serving the same dish for decades. It is flavorless pablum. Their movies, too. (With notable exceptions.)

[OriginalGeek]

17. I was disappointed to find out that movie wasn't this

[longship]

18. Metal is at the bottom of the barrel.

Why would anybody think that the louder music is, the better it is?

Sorry. I cannot go there.

This is what I call great music.
Robert Merrill and Jussi Bjoerling singing the duet from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. It is an astounding performance.

[OriginalGeek]

19. It's at the top of my barrel

Although Metallica is at the bottom of my metal barrel.


I always liked this one

[Inkfreak]

42. I guess metal artists & their millions of fans should walk away from the music then.

Or maybe they realize music is subjective. Your music puts me to sleep, but I wouldn't call it crap. I'd call it music I don't care for. Guess I'm just not as hip.

Metal isn't about being louder. Skill of instrument & lyrics. Feel free to shake your fists at those darn kids, though.

[snooper2]

52. If this doesn't get your head rockin' you may be missing a rhythm bone

[cemaphonic]

58. Metal is hardly the bottom of the barrel, at least as far as musicianship goes.

I don't particularly care for it either, but it's a genre that respects technical skill and compositional complexity a lot more than pretty much any popular genre. Metal guitarists almost always seem to love Paganini.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

65. This is a great point. And it just goes to show that technical skill isn't what matters

in everything. Give me a technically skilled mason or surgeon. Technical skill, with a dash of artistry, in those cases, for instance, is key.

But, as for music, I don't care if someone can play a thousand notes per measure. In fact, I really wish they wouldn't.

To get all semanticy about it, I think a case could be made for technical skill also being demonstrated in simplicity and not demonstrated in doing what is technically possible just because it's possible.

To me, the emotion evoked matters so much more than the so-called skill level. And the emotion metal thrashers and operatic sopranos evoke in me, despite my appreciation of the fact that a hell-of-a-high level of technical prowess is being demonstrated, is annoyance.

[ReRe]

33. .

[Bonx]

10. Here's some great music

[longship]

16. Well, as long as it has lots of loud drums.

But does that define what music is?

Not by my measure.

The kids are talented, but I would have chosen something other than Led Zeppelin, which is mostly horrible shitty noise.

Maybe Duke Ellington? He wrote a lot of good shit.

I was born in the 40's, grew up in the 50's, high school in the early 60's, hippy in the late 60's and 70's. But I increasingly learned to despise popular music. There is no there there. It's all marketing. What talent is there is wasted on mediocrity, and a lot of loud noise. The louder the better? (Huh?) And it must have electric guitars, loud bass, and drums! When did this become the definition of music?

Give me a soft, pastorale and sublime symphony any day, like Beethoven's Sixth, or Vaughan Williams' Third.

Or, if you want excitement, try Wagner's Gotterdamerung some day. The heroine, Brunhilde rides her horse onto her lovers funeral pier at the end of the world. Yup! It's myth. But never with more intrigue and drama. The music is astounding. You are pressed into the back of your seat by both the impact of the music and the drama. And there are absolutely no loudspeakers or microphones used, nor needed.

That is what makes music great. And one does not need to be always loud to accomplish it.

Or maybe listen to some Bill Evans some time.

Cool jazz is great, too. It's not all loud guitars and electric bass.

Broaden your horizons.

[ReRe]

39. I don't agree with your assessment...

... of the kids doing Zeppelin. Out of curiosity, are you a musician or have you ever been directly involved with the performance arts? If so, then why do you not recognize the teachable moment of LZ's piece? One of the most basic elements of music is the time signature. In this piece, the time signature changes numerous times, which is hard to grasp as an adult let alone for children playing xylophones. Being able to count out those signature changes is going to help them when they graduate to other instruments someday, allowing them to play the pieces that YOU are so fond of.

[longship]

44. Well, the kids do a good job, that's for sure. nt

[Bonx]

57. Not sure which I enjoy less

Noodly jazz crap or supercilious fanboys.

[olddots]

61. you are not turning people on to what I agree is great music

Patience is the best teacher .

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. I am not a classical or film music aficionado, but I do like the Bernard Herrmann music.

Still have and play on occasion a couple of amazing sounding London LPs by him I discovered back in the 1970s -- Bernard Herrmann Fantasy Film World and Bernard Herrmann Mysterious Film World. Those are two of the absolute best sounding recordings in the history of film music.

[longship]

24. I love Bernard Herrmann.

He was a very serious composer and did some rather radical things in film. Hitchcock, one of my favorite directors, used him often in the 50's. The North by Northwest score is astounding. Then compare it to Vertigo and it is like a completely different composer. But it was also Herrmann.

Than there's Stanley Kubrick who used music from the classical genre, but not just the standards. Ligeti, Bartok, and some really new and serious composers. You would never have seen a Kubrick film scored by that hack, John Williams. Kubrick often pushed the edge. Good for him.

Meanwhile music Oscars are given for yucky pablum, pop songs stuck in old broadway ideas.

And yes, Amadeus was a great flick, even if only that one had actually wonderful music to go along with the plot.

Try Anatomy of a Murder some time for a different take on a musical score.

My best regards.

[edbermac]

35. Herrmann's score for Psycho wasn't even nominated.

"Meanwhile music Oscars are given for yucky pablum"

Indeed.

[Bluenorthwest]

60. You conflate song awards, which have always gone to catchy show songs, to scores which are still

very rarely comprised of pop music. I loved this year's winning score for Grand Budapest Hotel. Kubrick used music suited to the film and used both curated and composed scores by such people as Nelson Riddle, Wendy Carlos, Abigale Mead and Jocelyn Pook.

[liberalhistorian]

20. Wow. Talk about elitist.

And I speak as someone who loves Amadeus as one of my all-time favorite movies and who was trained in classical music in piano and flute and who loves it. But I also love pop, rock, folk, jazz, blues, reggae, ska, etc., etc. Because there's no one "true" or "real" category of music and that's the beauty of it. Come on down from the high mountain top and broaden your view, you might be pleasantly surprised.

[longship]

23. Elitist?

I am not so pleasantly surprised by a popular music industry which seems to think that the only way to make music is by loud electric guitars, electric basses, and banging drums. Heavy metal, rap (hip-hop, or whatever it is called this week), and all the rest of the pop, is just big business.

Witness the Oscar winning film Whiplash which is an abomination of what a music school would be like, let alone how drums are actually played, other than by the Muppett, Animal. George Hrab eviscerated that movie in a recent podcast. But then, George is an actual drummer, not the pretend and pretentious cartoon drummer played on the screen.

You want drums? Try Gene Krupa's Tom-toms in 1938 at Carnegie Hall with Bennie Goodman's big band. The song was the capstone of the night, Sing, Sing, Sing (with a swing beat)

And yes, it brought the house down.

Some people just do not listen to enough music, or have such a narrow view of what music is.

As I posted earlier, Duke Elligton said it best. If the music sounds good, it is good.

Elitist? BAH! Expand your horizons. Try some Brahms for a change.

It's a requiem. And yup, he was likely an atheist. It's also good shit.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

27. The problem with Ellington's proclamation is that a lot of bad music sounds good to a lot of people.

I love Sing, Sing, Sing, by the way. But, I'm not that moved by a lot of classical music. And while I adore early jazz, I despise any jazz that came after about 1940. I don't care for opera. Though I've been told by some people that I'd like modern jazz or opera (different people) if only I were educated about it. Fuck that.

Music is a matter of individual preference. I'm with liberalhistorian (minus the jazz if s/he meant modern of course.) So much great modern music to love.

[snooper2]

54. Phil Collins tears that old shit up

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

29. Nice list of various kinds of modern music that have a lot to offer. Except jazz.

I hope never to hear another modern jazz artist perform, though fat chance as it seems to be becoming the background music of choice in a lot of public spaces. Thank goodness for ipods and headphones!

[onenote]

36. Not just elitist. Also ignorant.

The OP doesn't seem to have a clue about the Academy Award category against which he/she is ranting. It's for "Best Original Song." Song --- required to have music and lyrics. Original--must be composed for use in the movie.

Bernard Hermann is great. And he deservedly won Oscars for Best Musical Score. But he didn't write songs. Bizet? Pretty hard for him to get a nod for a best song Oscar when he's been dead for nearly 140 years. Amadeus -- great movie. But complaining that he didn't win best song is like complaining that Dickens didn't win best movie.

The movies are a popular medium. So, no big surprise, they are "stuck" in "pop" music for the best "SONG" award. Some years I've liked the winner, some years not. I'm sure there are groups that hand out awards for classical music. They're just not awards handed out by the motion picture academy.

[countryjake]

25. Should have watched 60 Minutes tribute to Bob Simon instead of the Oscars

They replayed a story that he'd done a few years ago down in Paraguay about

The Landfillharmonic:

[Arugula Latte]

67. I think you're defining "real" music in an incredibly narrow way.

Humans have been grooving on music (starting with sticks beating on logs, rocks hit together, or just a human voice or ten) for eons. Classical music is fine, but to entirely dismiss popular music, which has been touching people's cores for decades, strikes me as a bit sad.

[lovemydog]

14. I love it. For me that performance was the highlight of the evening.

[mackerel]

15. It was ok. That Jennifer Hudson sucked more.

[liberalhistorian]

22. She usually does. I'll never figure

out why she is such a big deal.

[kelliekat44]

26. You folks make me laugh. Surely you jest. If not, you are entitled to your opinions.

Here's mine. "Glory" magnificent, inspiring song.

Jennifer Hudson is absolutely a brilliant songstress and #1 out there now.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

28. With you on Glory. Not with you on Jennifer Hudson. I don't like siging that sounds like shouting,

yelling, or screaming, so Hudson and her ilk are out for me as are heavy metalics, screamos, etc.

Musical preference is a matter of individual taste.

[Myrina]

45. +10

Sing to me, don't howl at me - whatever genre.

[avebury]

30. I also found Glory to be magnificent and inspiring.

As soon as I got home from the theater I bought it on Itunes and downloaded it to my collection. I think that it is a song that will remind you of the fight for Civil Rights. Given everything that is going on in this country, this song if very timely.

[Vattel]

31. Wow, I just listened to it for the first time. It does suck.

Processed cheese

[Enrique]

32. you might be missing something in the song

[ReRe]

37. Did you see the tears...

... rolling down cheeks in the audience? It was a powerful performance.

[JHB]

34. Let it go...

[TexasProgresive]

38. I am going to weigh in here against my better judgement.

This thread just goes to show that old adage "one person's treasure is another's trash."

To mangle Voltaire: Fools have a habit of believing that everything done by a celebrity is admirable. For my part I listen, read, view, taste only to please myself and like only what suits my taste. Sorry Voltaire here's your words on the subject:

“Fools have a habit of believing that everything written by a famous author is admirable. For my part I read only to please myself and like only what suits my taste.”
― Voltaire, Candide

[Enrique]

40. i don't see the relationship to this thread

I don't see any fools in this thread, just people disagreeing over the song.

[TexasProgresive]

48. OK then, how about these two old adages

1. There's no accounting for taste.
2. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink. (when the aren't your own.)

This not meant to insult it just the way it is. My wife will say that she likes a particular author because he agrees with her.

My tastes in music run all over the place, I like really good guitar playing from jazz, classical, flamenco, folk, blues, western swing, roots music and some rock. I don't much care for country music since it has been taken over by RWNJs, and since my days in Houston associate country with red neck bullies who get their kicks attacking non like minded people. I know that not all country fans are jerks but they have a fair number of them.

In a nutshell I like music that people make because they enjoy making it. I am not too much for over produced and hyped music. But that's just me. I won't try to make you listen to what I like and prefer that the workplace be absent of music of any type mostly because you can't please everyone.

[Waiting For Everyman]

51. "everything done by a celebrity is admirable"

So true. It's a follower mentality, being unable to judge a thing on its own merits. And it is rampant today. It is self-perpetuating too, because the more consumers buy the celebrities' products, the bigger and wealthier celebrities they become, and thus, even more worthy of following than before. The end result, I've seen such celebrities termed "geniuses" here, which is such a joke.

Success =\= genius. In fact usually, it's the opposite: most real geniuses are unsung and little rewarded in their lifetimes.

People today think being famous is an achievement, in its own right, as if all of life revolves around the individual's quest to be noticed, taken to a mass scale. That strikes me as very infantile, but as noted, "to each his own". I guess. Or something.

Thanks for the quote, it perfectly fits.

[TexasProgresive]

55. We've got people famous for being famous

Paris Hilton and the Kardashians come to mind. Why does anyone care about these people? Some actors and musicians actually have something worthwhile to say outside of their art, but my 2 examples don't have art and have nothing worthwhile to say. In my opinion they are not even good to look at.

[Waiting For Everyman]

59. Two perfect examples, and there are too many more.

(As this is a music thread, I'll indulge in posting this... )

Reminds me of this late 80's ditty (which, speaking of awards, happened to win a Grammy in 1990), about what was a big problem even by then which is so much worse now.

"The Cult of Personality" (by Living Color)

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your T.V.
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me

I tell you "one and one makes three"
I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
I'm the cult of personality
The cult of personality
The cult of personality

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your own god's name
I'm every person you need to be
Oh, I'm the cult of personality
I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of
I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of, I'm the cult of personality

[wilt the stilt]

41. Honestly, there is a lot of great music

in many forms. Great classical, great jazz and great rock. Miles Davis"Kind of Blue" to John Coltrane to Layla to Mozart. This song"Glory" is not one of them. In my opinion it will be forgotten soon. Great music lasts a lifetime. To say that music that has electric guitars and electric bass is all bad is just a little elitist. That is why I chose "My favorite things". Julie Andrews to John Coltrane. Show tune to improvisational jazz.

[FSogol]

43. Are you still miffed that Lego Song didn't win?

[dissentient]

46. I don't listen to pop music these days,

because it seems like torture to my ears, but any musical person who decides they are going to call themselves "Legend", as a last name, well, they get a negative mark right off the bat from me.

A legend in their own mind, perhaps.

[melm00se]

47. My question is will "Glory"

have the longevity of some of the Academy Award winning songs on this list:
The Continental
Lullaby of Broadway
The Way You Look Tonight
Sweet Lellani
Thanks for the Memory
Over the Rainbow
When You Wish Upon A Star
The Last Time I Saw Paris
White Christmas
You'll Never Know
Swingin' On A Star
It Might As Well Be Spring
On the Atchison, Topeka & the Santa Fe
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Buttons and Bows
Baby It's Cold Outside
Mona Lisa
In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening
High noon
Secret Love
Three Coins In a Fountain
Love is a Many Splendored Thing
Que Sera, Sera
All The Way
Gigi
High Hopes
Never on Sunday
Moon River
Days of Wine and Roses
Call Me Irresponsible
Chim Chim Cheree
The Shadow of Your Smile
Born Free
Talk to the Animals
The Windmills of Your Mind
Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head
For All We Know
The Theme From Shaft
The Morning After
The Way We Were
We May Never Love Like This Again
I'm Easy
Evergreen
You Light Up My Life
Last Dance
It Goes Like It Goes
Fame
Arthur's Theme
Up Where We Belong
What A Feeling
I Just Called to Say I Love You
Say You, Say Me
Take My Breath Away
(I've Had) The Time of My Life
Let the River Run
Under the Sea
Sooner Or Later
Beauty and the Beast
A Whole New World
Streets of Philadelphia
Can You Feel the Love Tonight
Colors of the Wind
You Must Love Me
My Heart Will Go On
When You Believe
You'll Be in My heart
Things Have Changed
If I Didn't Have You
Lose Yourself
Into the West
Al Otro Lado Del Rio
It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp
I Need to Wake Up
Falling Slowly
Jai Ho
The Weary Kind
We Belong Together
Man or Muppet
Skyfall

(and yes, I am aware that there are songs on this list have never been heard from again)

[progressoid]

49. Gotta love a list that has both 'Chim Chim Cheree' and 'Its Hard Out Here for a Pimp'

And, like many of those songs, 'Glory' will probably be forgotten in a year or so.

[liskddksil]

50. Song was decent, the artist John Legend is a major proponent of the public school privitization

movement of Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates, Eli Broad & Walmart . See "Waiting For Superman" and his interviews on Real Time.

[MrScorpio]

53. There's no winning from judging other people's tastes in music

No matter what that music it is.

And tastes change and evolve over time. There's no better way to detect a person who's out of touch than when they subjectively judge current trends as "not good enough" or "not real music."

It's pretty fucking ridiculous whenever I see people do that... And I'm in my fifties.

All types of music means something to someone. Just because a person doesn't like it that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with it.

Don't like a song? Listen to something else.

[Skidmore]

56. In my mind, what makes "Glory" stand out

is something more ambient. It is the essence of how a people rose and moved forward. The choir at the beginning reflects the heavy reliance on the sanctuary the churches provided so that people could meet, discuss, and formulate strategies to fight for civil rights. That "Glory" refrain rises and moves forward like the march. It is a distilled feeling. The listener is propelled forward to the modern iteration in the form of the rap message, the voice of a younger generation. I'm not a huge fan of rap and prefer other styles of music but, for me, in the context of this song, it appeals to my sense of the song as being about movement and momentum. I'm not able to critique the musicality and technical aspects of the piece. I can tell you that the song, at least for me, strikes an emotional chord and it will be in my music library.

[frogmarch]

62. I wear this to concerts.

I'm very particular about what music I'll listen to. In the whole world there's only one song I like and don't flee from when I hear it: "Carrickfergus."

[olddots]

63. Once again

I hate drum machines !!!!!!!

[Gothmog]

64. I really like this song

[wilt the stilt]

66. a terrific movie about a strong woman

"Begin Again"

and this song is terrific as are all the songs in this movie. This song is the key to the movie. This was from the director of "Once" another great movie and keira Knightly stretched herself way more in this movie as she had to sing.

[Spazito]

68. It sucked for you, it didn't for me...

The wonderful thing about music, about the arts in general, is whether it moves one visually, emotionally and that is unique to each individual. Some paintings I find powerful and moving others might yawn while viewing.


I found "Glory" powerful, meaningful, I will certainly remember it.