Very Short Hub on Awful Music (and a little bit on film)
Something I Cannot Understand
It happens all the time: you will be in a coffee shop, or a lift (elevator), or a pub, or wherever, and you will suddenly realise that the music that has been buzzing around your ears like a very annoying and persistant bluebottle is awful.* Mostly the songs are cover versions of old classics. The latest example I heard of this strange phenomenon was a truly hideous cover of The Beatles' beautiful 'Hey Jude'. Now, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what the initial thought process was behind the decision to make such a horrendous recording. Did someone really think that taking some random young female with no vocal talent or training, and putting her in a recording studio to sing along to a backing track of thin and reedy and poorly played awfulness, would be a fitting tribute to the genius of Lennon and McCartney? If someone actually thought that this poor imitation of music was worthy of burning to CD to distribute around the world for the torture of innocent coffee shop frequenters, then I think we need to track that person down and tell them 'No!' They must be made aware that the noise they are producing is in no way musical, and in no way appropriate for public listening. Stop it!
The same thing happens with movies, and I just cannot understand it. If you are going to make a remake of a film, you need to do something original and different with the story, such as was the case with Karate Kid. There, some clever people realised that the original film with Ralph Macchio and Noriyuki Pat Morita was a classic and should not be messed with or imitated in any way. And so the new take on the story was a success and was beautiful in its own right because it was so different. Simple. If you lack the imagination and tremendous initial idea to remake a movie properly whilst still paying sufficient and respectful tribute to the original, then just do not bother. You will just embarrass yourself.
*Bluebottles really do fly at people's heads. They absolutely do do it on purpose, just for fun, and I hate them all the more for that.
