I could not help but compare her to Andrews when she was attempting to match the original style, during a tribute, while the camera pans back and forth between Gaga and Andrews. And I wasn’t so much comparing her to Julie Andrews as I was comparing her to the hundreds of vocalists out there who could have done a better job today - Lady Gaga and Julie Andrews are very different singers, and I don’t see why it is surprising that one would struggle to sing the other’s music. This was supposed to be the musical climax of the largest artistic presentation of the year, and I simply think they could have done better.
The Glory number was fantastic, the real musical highlight of the show to me. I can’t even remember Hudson’s piece at the moment - it struck me as well executed but didn’t exactly excite me.
And? I wasn’t sitting down with a scorecard or grading rubric with the intent of judging her, I was listening to the featured performance at a show that reaches mores than a billion people, and I was underwhelmed and thought that they could have easily found a better performer. If it sounds like I was being hypercritical it is because I was specifically asked to give details about what I didn’t like.
Personally, I would have loved it if they had given that spot to someone that they saw as the next Julie Andrews.
I would argue both that she was at least trying to match up to Andrews and that she was trying pretty hard to reproduce Andrews’ actual style, but regardless, does that mean I am not allowed to dislike it?
That the majority disagree has been apparent since people started posting about the performance! And if you want me to be less hypercritical, then everyone stop asking me for more detail!
Not “everyone” has. And you don’t have to stop being hypercritical, but you certainly can handle dissenting feedback if you are. Again, it’s not that big of a deal if someone counters your opinion, we do that every day here.
I have been handling dissenting feedback - when people say “I liked it” I have had no problem with that. You liked it. I have no problem with that. I didn’t.
So there has been a lot of criticism of Patricia Arquette’s comments about equal pay for women. Some felt it was tacky of her to bring it up, when she and many of the other women in the room make lots of money as actresses. It seems if one makes a lot of money being an actress, they aren’t allowed to notice if they still are not paid on par with men.
She fired back at some of the criticism she received:
It was ironic that a day or two after the Oscars there was an article in the LA Times about actors in LA theater. They want $9 an hour. They don’t get paid for rehearsals. Tim Robbins (the actor) was against it saying it would drive the little theaters out of business, including his theater company…
So, I wasn’t suggesting that Gaga working with a vocal coach was negative or positive, just that it was reported. Personally, I didn’t hate it and am not criticizing her vocal technique. Of course, I noticed the missing highs but other than that I don’t much care about technique. It’s not a recital, but it felt like a recital most of the time to me, personally. I was not surprised to see that she could sing but it felt a lot more like trying to be something she isn’t more than showing another side of who and what she is and that may be the channeling Julie Andrews thing, which did not work for me at all. I do like Born this Way and all of that.
" I was not surprised to see that she could sing but it felt a lot more like trying to be something she isn’t more than showing another side of who and what she is and that may be the channeling Julie Andrews thing, which did not work for me at all."
I saw it as showing another side of who she is. That yes, she can do the outrageous get-up pop thing, but she has the versatility of pairing with Tony Bennett and now doing this type of music as well. It speaks to a real level of unafraidedness (new word) that I find very appealing and very consistent with her message of “be who you are.” She wants to sing this way, she’s going to sing this way. Indeed, I like the fact that of the younger stars out there, she alone is honoring and respecting the great talents of the older generation like Bennett and Andrews even if they are “uncool” to the younger folks today. It’s a marker of artistry and maturity.
And I found the “conventional” hair / dress a statement in itself – that in this particular case, it’s not about the get-up, it’s about the beauty and power of the classic Sound of Music songs.
BTW, I love the song Edelweiss. It makes me cry and I don’t know why!
I for one appreciated cosmicfish’s critic of Lady Gaga. I’m not a big fan of musicals or the American Songbook so I haven’t really liked her new ventures anyway, but they seemed somewhat lacking and I ddn’t know why. I liked this performance better than what I saw of the Tony Bennett duos (one Youtube I think, and something on NPR) where I thought she was incredibly wooden, they had no chemistry and I didn’t think their voices blended together at all. I love duets in most genres.
BTW, I must be one of the few people alive who has managed to never see The Sound of Music though I’ve heard all the songs a billion times.
I’m sure they could have found a superb Broadway musical theater star to sing this tribute. But I have no problem with the fact that they contracted for Lady Gaga to sing it. As much as I love MT and know of all the top MT artists (I’m seeing Audra McDonald in concert this week!), I think the general public who watches the Oscars would know of Lady Gaga, and so for this particular show, I can understand their choice. Again, I think she gave a great performance.
Cosmicfish, you asked if it is OK if you disliked Gaga’s performance and voicing what you did not like about it. I see NOTHING wrong with your doing so, and likewise, many of us are discussing why WE liked it. That basically is what people do on a discussion forum. Differing opinions are welcome. I’m not sure why our differing opinions keep making you wonder if we are OK with your voicing of yours. We simply disagree; nothing more.
@cosmicfish, I’m with @mathmom on this. I DVRed past a lot of the Sound of Music. I am not musically trained, but I’ve spent many hours with musicians (as a sound man in my youth) and listening to music. As the saying goes, I know what I like, and appreciate it when someone can provide insight into what it was about a performance that didn’t quite work for me. I like it even more when someone provides insight into why a particular performance was wonderful, but those moments didn’t exist for me at the Oscars.
All in all, for me, this was the most boring Oscar show of all time. I might have watched 45 minutes after zooming along on my DVR. The business about Melanie Griffith and her daughter capturing so much attention points to how boring the show was.
D2 and I have seen Tony Bennett in concert twice in recent years and I have the second duet CD he made with other artists, including Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga. He made a first duet CD that is also very good, but the second one represents a more contemporary group of musicians that he worked with. Seeing him in concert was D’s wish, all along, although I was happy to go along; she has a very diverse taste in music. But she is vocally classically trained so has had more exposure to music than most kids who have not studied this. Only disappointment - he has his daughter open the concerts, and she is just terrible.
