On Feb 18, 2007, at 4:38 AM, dhbailey wrote:
I was under the impression that the complaint had to do with pop
songs not originally written for the musical Grease which were
widely known in the 70s which were included in the musical for
effect, and that no pop songs not originally written for the
musical but were widely known in the 50s were used.
I thought someone might provide a list of 70s songs used in Grease.
Hmm, I'm sorry. I thought this would be self-explanatory, but
evidently not.
The 1971 musical Grease, as written, has an entire scores of songs in
the "50s style". As has been pointed out, all of these songs were
actually written in the early 1970s, but they were written in
imitation of the 1950s. It is, as John said, manufactured nostalgia.
I have no problem with this. I love the show.
My objection is entirely with the 1978 movie adaptation of the show.
(And, like almost any musical made into a movie -- or novel, for that
matter -- the movie version is the one that quickly becomes the best
known.)
For the movie, many of the songs from the musical were cut or
relegated to background music at the dance. Instead, four new songs
were added. In reverse order of offensiveness, they are:
* "Hopelessly Devoted to You" I think is actually a pretty good song,
and I'd probably forgive it if it were the only intrusion, though
it's not really a good fit in the story.
* "Sandy" is a mediocre and forgettable song which offends me
primarily because it replaces "All Alone at the Drive-In Movie",
which is one of my favorite songs from the show.
* For the final duet at the end, the original "All Shook Up" (another
song I really love) is replaced by "You're the One that I Want". It
and the title theme "Grease is the Word" both scream of the disco-ish
style that was immensely popular when the movie was released in 1978
but has nothing to do with the 1950s setting. Those are the two I
had in mind when I said the anachronism drives me crazy.
--
On Feb 18, 2007, at 5:07 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
The songs in Grease are all anachronistic -- some more obviously
than others (i.e., the disco beat in the title song), but even in
those songs that are meant to evoke 1950's rock and roll, none of
them would fool anyone who's even passingly familiar with the pop
music of the era into thinking that they'd actually been written in
the 1950's.
"Some more obviously than others" is a huge understatement. The Bee
Gees disco of the title song is horridly anachronistic. It bears no
resemblance to the 1950s at all and doesn't even pretend to. You're
a better musicologist than I am, so I'll take your word for it that
the faux-1950s songs of the original show are not sufficiently
authentic to trick an expert into thinking they really were written
in the 1950s ... but if you really hear no difference between the
'manufactured nostalgia' of 50s-style songs like "Beauty School
Dropout" or "Greased Lightning" and the blatant disco of 70s-style
songs "Grease is the Word" or "You're the One That I Want', then
you're just nuts.
mdl
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
