Is it me, or was the singing of Who’s performance at the Super Bowl half-time was so bad that they’d have been thrown out of any bar for it?
Sure, they are the Who.
Sure, it’s the Super Bowl.
Sure, there were lots of lights and a fantastic stage.
But could any of that compensate for the poor singing?
They couldn’t even sing, for crying out loud! Close your eyes and tell me that was a good performance. Listen and tell me if you heard that from a cover band, you’d give them the thumbs up.
It was a good day for lip synching, let me tell you!
How disappointing! Good waste of money!
I’m posting this before the show is even over! That’s how bad it was!
In the summer of 2008, I took a foray into the world of songwriting with a few songwriting camps. I had done it on my own here and there for a while, but I wanted to learn from others, meet them and hear their songs. What I found was a rich cultural universe all around me, but one which was kind of like an out of phase alternate parallel universe because unless I knew where and when to go, I could go through life without ever coming in contact with it any more than one could catch a neutrino. In case you have no interest in nuclear physics, neutrinos pass through us all the time but it takes some special conditions underground to “catch” one, where “catching” means an interaction with the particle under the right conditions to produce a bit of light. Not a bad analogy, really.
But what a beautiful universe it was, this songwriters’ universe. There were many wonderful and talented people who wrote marvelous songs and performed them well. Honestly, for a guy who listened mostly to mainstream music until up to about 5 years ago, I was immediately impressed by what I heard around me. During any given week since I had discovered this songwriting world, I swear I liked half the Top 40 list of songs less than those written by some of these songwriters who have generally not had lots of mainstream air play. Not that I listen to those shows but I still listen to radio, and old-fashioned mainstream radio is all I’ve got. None of this Sirius stuff.
A year and a half after that first discovery, I am actively getting back into the songwriting world. I’ve just been enjoying it in the mean time while occupying my free time with many other interests, including this blog. My personal life is sometimes a little bit unpredictable in that sense. In that time, I have had the pleasure and honour to have met and learned from many talented songwriters and singers, including:
Go ahead, click on a few of their names to listen to their music on their sites! There is a lot of phenomenal music there! I hope to rejoin their universe again soon on a more active basis, and meet even more great songwriters I have only had the pleasure to hear their songs thus far.
I only have one song recorded so far, but I have a few songs waiting. I am taking a recording at home course, and have the equipment, so I am hoping to record them in a few months when my course is done. I also have a few more songs close to completion that might be ready by then, too. It’ll just take a little time to all come together… but it’s a cold winter out there these days, and I’ve got lots of time on my hands.
