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May 19, 2010
Lee DeWyze - Another Rendition of Hallelujah
It was no surprise to me that yet another version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah found its way into American Idol 2010, courtesy of performer Lee DeWyze. What did surprise me was the verses that were chosen for the arrangement.
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In case you haven't already seen my research on this you might want to check out the article on the versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I would classify the arrangement that Lee sang as "Version 3, verses 1 and 3". You can also see who sings what version on my article about Jeff Buckley.
Lee does do a very good job, I can't really say anything bad about his performance; take a look:
But I was disappointed in the length - it seemed way too short, perhaps he should have been able to sing that song when it was just down to two performers and he had time for more verses. It felt like the arranger had condensed Lord of the Rings into a 25-page booklet.
Again, I was surprised at the choice of verses 1 and 3, but perhaps verse 2 was a little too sexual for prime time American Idol; verse 5 seems like the obvious choice but admittedly that's been done to death. In truth verse 3 is one of my favorites, so after I was done watching and re-watching Lee's performance, it made sense and really appealed to me.
Jeff Buckley's version is still my overall favorite, but for a song that even Leonard Cohen considers to be covered too many times, Lee did a great job.
Posted by Hammer at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2010
What Should I Be Preparing For?
Here's a fun way to pass the time: go to Google and type in a phrase, and then wait to see what it brings back in it's auto-suggest feature...
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Today I typed this: preparing for
Then I waited, and was rewarded with this:
So this is what the rest of the world is preparing for.
Interviews: #1, #6 and #9 are about preparing for a job interview. I assume this is related to the current economy.
Pregnancy: #2, #3, #4 and #10 are concerned with preparing for being pregnant and having a baby. It looks to me like more people are preparing to get pregnant than those who are preparing for their next job! Way to go people!
Colonoscopy: #5 is just no fun at all. Maybe our North American eating habits are messing up our digestive system.
Marathon: #7 is probably only on the list right now because the 114th Boston Marathon just finished. Friends of mine were in it this year, and I agree it is a lot of preparation and hard work.
End of Days: Preparing for 2012 to me sounds like people who are preparing for the end of the world, not just getting ready for spring cleaning next year. Poor saps, one just can't prepare for the end of the world... if it comes in your lifetime, then it matters not what you've done to prepare, we're all gone anyway.
I had better start preparing for something now.
Posted by Hammer at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
The Humble Indie Bundle
This is an interesting idea: pay what you want for software. I thought that such an exercise might lead to an overwhelming majority of people paying "nothing", but it looks like that didn't happen.
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I've played World of Goo before, and it's a great game. It's even installed in the computer lab at my daughter's elementary school, as the school board thinks its a non-offending and possibly educational game. So when I saw it was included in the Humble Indie Bundle I decided to check it out. Then after reading the whole story on this experiment, I happily paid $20.00 to support these independent software developers.
Go see for yourself... World of Goo alone is worth the price I paid. But as of the time of writing this article there are only three days left!
Posted by Hammer at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)