What did Pentatonix do now?
Dec. 4th, 2019 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athousanderrorsvia https://ift.tt/2DKvVib
Okay so what everyone should probably understand going in is that I don’t like Pentatonix at the best of times – I find their covers intensely boring, of the “don’t change much, just slow it down and add some trills” variety – and they’re EVERYWHERE, especially this time of year. So to start with I’m not disposed to be kindly to them. They’re famous, they don’t particularly need my kindliness.
But this year (or, googling, last year, but I just found out about it) they did a cover of When You Believe, which is a fantastic song that I love, from a movie I rewatch at least once a year, a movie specifically about Jewish people leaving bondage, literally the song the characters sing as they are leaving bondage….and put it on a Christmas album.
Which is tacky, and, well, I don’t ask you to forgive this pun, it’s tone deaf. READ THE HOLIDAY SEASON, GUYS.
But they also cut out the Song of the Sea, which is the part sung in Hebrew in the original, which retells the death of Pharoah and is a fairly key prayer in Judaism. Just…sliced that last little bit of Jewishness out of the song.
They had so many options. They could have learned it themselves and sung it; it’s not like vocalists aren’t used to learning to sing in foreign languages, and I gotta tell you guys with transliteration Hebrew is SUPER EASY to sing in. They could have brought in someone with knowledge of the Hebrew language to sing it, because IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S A SHORTAGE, cantor is a Literal Job. Or they could have had it translated and sung it in English, though all the “God you are great and terrible you killed Pharoah’s army” probably would have killed the jingly Christmas vibe they were goin’ for.
Anyway, it’s not like I listened to them to begin with so whatever, but they have officially joined Bohemian Rhapsody on the stream banlist. (Bohemian Rhapsody probably doesn’t deserve it, Queen is lovely in general and the song is fine, but it’s also seven minutes of nonsense and I don’t tolerate more than four minutes of nonsense.)
(Your picture was not posted)
Okay so what everyone should probably understand going in is that I don’t like Pentatonix at the best of times – I find their covers intensely boring, of the “don’t change much, just slow it down and add some trills” variety – and they’re EVERYWHERE, especially this time of year. So to start with I’m not disposed to be kindly to them. They’re famous, they don’t particularly need my kindliness.
But this year (or, googling, last year, but I just found out about it) they did a cover of When You Believe, which is a fantastic song that I love, from a movie I rewatch at least once a year, a movie specifically about Jewish people leaving bondage, literally the song the characters sing as they are leaving bondage….and put it on a Christmas album.
Which is tacky, and, well, I don’t ask you to forgive this pun, it’s tone deaf. READ THE HOLIDAY SEASON, GUYS.
But they also cut out the Song of the Sea, which is the part sung in Hebrew in the original, which retells the death of Pharoah and is a fairly key prayer in Judaism. Just…sliced that last little bit of Jewishness out of the song.
They had so many options. They could have learned it themselves and sung it; it’s not like vocalists aren’t used to learning to sing in foreign languages, and I gotta tell you guys with transliteration Hebrew is SUPER EASY to sing in. They could have brought in someone with knowledge of the Hebrew language to sing it, because IT’S NOT LIKE THERE’S A SHORTAGE, cantor is a Literal Job. Or they could have had it translated and sung it in English, though all the “God you are great and terrible you killed Pharoah’s army” probably would have killed the jingly Christmas vibe they were goin’ for.
Anyway, it’s not like I listened to them to begin with so whatever, but they have officially joined Bohemian Rhapsody on the stream banlist. (Bohemian Rhapsody probably doesn’t deserve it, Queen is lovely in general and the song is fine, but it’s also seven minutes of nonsense and I don’t tolerate more than four minutes of nonsense.)
(Your picture was not posted)
