by I have done my best to avoid the television show “Glee” because I wasn’t interested in anything high school or Madonna or Britney.
Then, one day this week, I was stuck in a situation where I was forced to work in an unfriendly, foreign, environment — meaning I was not in control of the remote control — and the only thing watchable on TV was a Glee rerun of the Madonna show immediately followed by more Glee with Britney.
I sat through the Madonna dross. I left the room when the Britney rerun started. The acting on Glee is trite and terrible. The singing is even worse: Morose! What a downer.
I am aware that Glee is a popular show — but after watching a full episode — I have no idea why the program is even allowed to be on television. Can you explain it to me in minute terms? Give examples. Be cleaner and clearer than Glee in expression and execution if you are able.
Glee is lip-sync’d karaoke. Where is the fun or the delight in that sort of dead, prerecorded, performance?
Glee takes popular songs and music videos and makes exact copies with their actors — and that is supposed to be entertaining? In what way? In which universe? Where is the human spirit of a genuine live performance?
Sure, American Idol is terrible, but at least the contestants are generally singing live. If you want some pretty good singing in live performance, check out The Sing Off on NBC.
Glee is all bad imitation and nothing uniquely expressed. I have no idea how such a show found success in the marketplace — unless viewers are so aesthetically unindoctricated and desperate for entertainment — that they’ll eat rehash and bathe in backwash and consider it all a sparkling divination that demands rejoicing instead of remedy.
I have watched Glee. I will never again watch Glee. I have seen the imitator and I know even a loathsome original is preferable to a poor, groveling, sycophant.
TRUE STORY : Our baby was born during Glee, and my wife was happier than happy because she was born during a show her mother loved (Greatest American Hero) and her brother was also born during such a show.
I know Glee is karaoke, and I am okay with that. I find the characters to be compelling, the storylines to be amusing, the villain to be menacing, and the songs to be usually fun to listen to. It’s a funny show with funny characters that, yes, can sometimes be irritating — but we get a good laugh out of it more often than not.
UH-OH! Sounds like Baby Davidescu and I are already having our first artistic disagreement — and he’s barely two days old!
You will have to wean him away from the television, Gordon. Glee is now within him and Sesame Street and Barney and The Fraggles may not be enough plain enjoyment for him!
We are aiming to avoid television for Baby D as much as we can.
There is so much dreck out there that rots kids minds.
Gordon!
I fear we need an intervention. Yes, Baby Davidescu is still an infant. Yes, he’s young and might not even know what day it is yet — but he’s been “programmed” for the last nine months by his mother! Who knows what sort of sensational influences he’s been exposed to so far? We need to surround him with Bach and Jimi Hendrix and Chet Atkins and all the Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare movies we can get our hands on.
Ideally, this de-programming would be done in person, but I don’t know where the baby is located or if the hospital would even let me in with a DVD player and an iPad and and armful of movies and mixes — so we’ll have to do this through-the-air with satellites. Give me the GPS coordinates for Baby Davidescu, and I can start streaming content immediately!
I agree, in general, with your assessment. However, as musicians, it is important to keep up with what is going on in the rest of the musical (and I use that term loosely) world. It’s hard to have an intelligent discussion about music or be a quasi-expert if you’re not informed outside your niche.
I really appreciate that you can articulate why you dislike Glee. Many people say they “hate” certain kinds of music or television or movies or food or whatever but can’t back up their opinions with logical, reasoned, informed arguments. My husband hates peas but really can’t say why. “They taste gross” is all I can get out of him.
Oh, and congrats on your first anniversary!
Hi Julie —
Thank you for your insightful comment.
I would admire Glee if it were outside the mainstream Pop niche. Why not do what they’re doing, but use Bach or Ska or World Beat or Trance or pre-Chet-Atkins-Nashville-Sound-Country — and so on — to bring a new “Glee” light of discovery to the beat and melody? That woud, at least, add a new angle to music that is no longer really popularly appreciated.
As it stands now, Glee is nothing more than a rewarmed copy of what is already popular, and to me that’s like re-coloring an already colored coloring book: There’s no room for depth or expression or discovery because you’re just tracing what was just created.
Thank you for the first birthday wishes! We’re young, yet we feel incredibly old. It sure does seem like yesterday, though, when we first wound up this blog and let it roll.
I don’t think I have seen this show. I don’t think I ever will now. haha
You aren’t missing much, Anne!