Is a musically weak and lyrically inane take by Ariane Grande on the Rogers
and Hammerstein original anything to be concerned about?
A billion streams cannot be wrong
She has released a (legal) update on an admittedly
saccharine sentiment and a tune whose beauty was understood by John Coltrane
among others…
and converted it into a putrid paean to materialism with a
lame urban vibe and a trite melodic appropriation.
Is she to be applauded because those from yesteryear with a
tad more talent are, as a consequence, being talked about?
Is the woman whose career, through no fault of her own, was
boosted by evil murderers driven by ideological-based hatred, guilty of
offering the world her tears and a tribute to gross consumption?
Or is she being ironic, like other pop commentators at the
top of their game from decades past who’ve used their platforms to preach
anti-material morals whilst creaming in the dosh?
Does pop do irony anymore?
Just how rich is this vacuous, soulless, to my, no doubt
malign ear, production-line muzak babe with an average voice and very average
tunes, going to be made by celebrating ‘bubbles’ and other of her favourite
things?
I find it funny that everybody seemingly hates politicians;
there all in it for what they can get, aren’t they; they betray the people; climbing
the greasy poll and stabbing us and each other in the back. Yet none of them
are paid more than £100,000 a year to represent our often squalid and
prejudiced world views.
But millions will worship a singer who, to her credit, has
the honesty to tell you about what she is more than able to afford, make a
virtue of it, and take your money in the process. These are the people we like,
aren’t they? They don’t exploit people or their position, do they? They don’t
have power, right? They don’t look after themselves at the expense of others. They
connect with those less fortunate than themselves. They (often) come from
humble beginnings... whatever that means. They’re not glorying in the
globally-sanctioned excess that makes a few rich and many poor……
I have never (except for maybe a few months when I was 19)
favoured revolution. But honestly, if you forced me to say the kind of people
who should be candidates for elimination – because that’s what happens in
revolutions - then I wouldn’t hesitate …… and nor of course would those who
killed the innocents at her Manchester concert. So we cannot go there.
But Ariane Grande is not an innocent; she is a fellow
traveller in unbridled exploitation and a singer of some of its worst tunes.
For which she is popular. So who is innocent then?
