Classical Crossover

I know my classical music. Not only was I a classical aficionado for several years, the nature of my job exposes me to classical music 5 days a week. So I know what I'm talking about here. Now...

To any budding classical music fans, I have one very important thing to tell you and here it is: no matter how badly you want them to be, Josh Groban, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, Paul Potts, and film scores are not classical music. Especially Josh Groban. In fact, Josh Groban may someday receive his own entry just because he irritates me so much. Anyway, this music (with the exception of film scores) is what is called classical crossover. It's like classical meets pop. And it's shit.

Now that I've said that, I'd like to address that these people do perform operatic repertoire and that's the one thing that keeps me from completely disrespecting everything they do. But why does everyone melt over their bullshit songs like Time to Say Goodbye (the video above)? Con te partiro is the fucking worst. I've heard it way too many times, morons love it, and it's not even a great song to begin with.

People apparently listen to this and think it's opera. There is nothing I'd love more than to see Puccini, Rossini, Verdi, and Wagner crawl out of their graves and kick these peoples' asses.

I think my main problem with classical crossover is that I think of it as being sort of the Miley Cyrus of the classical music world. Today's mainstream music is all dumbed down and classical music is no exception. I hear so much great music today that never gets radio airplay or publicity because some jackass decided that it wouldn't make any money so it's no good. Instead they'll give people Miley Cyrus because she's good looking. But the music is FUCKING BULLSHIT. And that's the problem with the music industry. It's the "hotness industry" not the music industry. People apparently don't mind mediocre music if the singer is hot.

Classical crossover is the same. Everyone likes it because it's melodramatic and catchy and sounds more refined than Fergie because there are classical instruments involved and it's sung in an operatic way. And hey, most of the time the singers are hot. But it's garbage! Verdi never would have written crap like Besame Mucho. Well...he might have. He would have written it with his ass cheeks in less than 5 minutes and then wiped his ass with the manuscript after realizing he could do so much better.

And I'm sick of English rock songs being passed off as something more sophisticated just by transcribing it to classical instrumentation and changing the lyrics to Italian. Doesn't work that way. Paul Potts sings "Ognuno Soffre" (or R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts to normal people). My theory is that they change the lyrics to Italian because if singers sang the words in English against a classical backing, they'd be ridiculed for doing a cheesy version of a song. But people are so dumb that if you just change the lyrics to another language, the song now becomes "refined" and "passionate" and "breathtaking".

Finally, film scores. I don't mind them nearly as much because they're a lot closer to classical music than Josh Groban. But again, the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack isn't classical music. It's instrumental music. This is a young person thing. Everyone loves the Pirates soundtrack. Well of course you do. It's not like that boring old Haydn. This has cymbal crashes and shit. It's exciting and brief enough to keep your dull little mind stimulated.

Anyway, I'm getting sick of writing this. There are some notes from a music snob.