This Week in the Mercury

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Books “Let Them Touch Those Things for Once!”

Posted by Ned Lannamann on Thu, Apr 24 at 4:31 PM

Oh, it’s on. In response to this:

Here’s a video of Celine Dion being interviewed on “Larry King Live” right after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. If you haven’t seen this before, I recommend watching the entire thing. It’s pretty incredible:

Wow. Just wow.

Now, if Celine only stuck to angry, tearful interviews, I would certainly be a fan. No question. But towards the end of this interview, she sings a song to soothe the troubled people (and look how nice she gets when Larry asks her to sing!)—and good god, what an awful, facile, predictable, artless piece of shit it is.

My point is this: Celine Dion makes crappy music. Everything else about her is a weird delight (even if it makes one borderline uncomfortable). But if we’re taking the music on its own merits, it’s schmaltz: rendered chicken fat, which I do not have a taste for.

Yes, Celine’s enthusiastic. But that’s not enough. I saw French electro-popper Yelle’s enthusiastic, joyous performance last night, and she was clearly having more fun than anyone else in the room. And she was terrific. She was truly great! She was so good that everyone in the room wanted to BE Yelle, singing in French and jumping to robotic disco beats.

Probably nobody watching that video Steve posted of “Proud Mary” wanted to be Celine. So what’s the difference between Yelle and Celine? Yelle makes good music. As a result, people who watch Yelle want to be Yelle. It’s that simple. (And Steve, if you really want justification in your love for Celine, I have a book you can read.)

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Comments

Cheez whiz!

Posted by Courtney Ferguson | April 24, 2008 4:51 PM

This is a flagrant abuse of the Books category. Can we get a "Ned and Steve's Bitch Fight" tab?

Posted by Alison Hallett | April 24, 2008 5:03 PM

Hey! Leave schmaltz out of it! Scmaltz gives chicken soup it's delicious flavor and healing power. Maybe you should use some sort of French-Canadian food to describe Celine, like poutine.

Posted by Hymie Jerkowitz | April 24, 2008 6:17 PM

No, it would be gorton.

And leave poor Celine alone. Her music may be crappy, but she has a lot more talent than "Yelle"--but then any halfway decent lookin' chick singing in french and appealing to indie rock lovin' idiots is bound to be lionized. Let's see what she's doing in 10 years.

Posted by jake | April 24, 2008 8:54 PM

I like her perspective on helicopsters.

Celine's no different from Whitney Houston, Linda Ronstadt or a trust-fund brat with a Stradivari fiddle -- great instrument, but not much music coming out of it. The distinction is subjective, but it's really not that difficult to sort out talent from a badly misplaced gift. Enthusiasm plus a great instrument can equal a migraine if there's no talent to make the instrument sing.

Posted by Guffman | April 25, 2008 3:03 AM

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY NED, CZAR OF ALL MUSIC! Thanks for helping us no-nothings sort out the difference between "good" and "bad," Ned. We hereby relinquish any opinions we may have.
(Actually, Ned has pretty good taste in music — his occasional snobbery not withstanding. Check out his weekly podcast "Your Radio Sucks" for lots of good stuff!)

http://podcasts.portlandmercury.com/2008/04/your_radio_sucks_episode_18.php

Posted by Wm. Steven Humphrey | April 25, 2008 8:45 AM

New Orleans is a mostly "French" city. What the fuck does that mean? Larry King is a senile dipshit.

Posted by G | April 25, 2008 4:35 PM

Is there a mosquito in front of her face or is it a tiny "helicopster"?

Posted by G | April 25, 2008 4:36 PM

they don't pay you people nearly enough.

Posted by Van Hammersly | April 28, 2008 7:46 AM