Dion / Elvis - To sickened to flame it properly

Browsing around on the YouTube site, I stumbled across this - Celine Dion and Elvis Presley singing If I Can Dream - together, thanks to fancy technology, on American Idol.

If I Can Dream is one of the best songs ever to my mind, and the performance of it by Elvis is wonderful, heartbreakingly sincere ('68 Comeback Special), and when Elvis heard the tape himself he said “I will never again do a song I don’t believe in” (this was of course right after the 30 something crap movies with crap songs).

If you must desecrate the memory of this guy, can’t you at least choose one of his say 200 nonsense songs - must you sacrifice this on the cheap altar of commercialism? Have you nothing better to do with all the money and all the artists at your disposal…?

It’s not even good. It’s actually awful. The duet doesn’t work. It’s just making yet another heap of glittering shit out of one of the most talented men of the 20th century. (And yes, he made a few himself.)

There really ought to be law against this. I mean the guy is dead* - he can’t say no to getting dragged about like this.

Grrr… I was going to take this to the pit, but this clip just makes me tired… old, and sad and tired.

  • Yes, yes, I know.

Wow, am I glad we got rid of Celine Dion when we could.

This thread is better suited for Cafe Society.

I’ll move it for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

Heh. I remember seeing a clip of her singing an AC/DC song in her Las Vegas show. “You Shook Me All Night Long” I think it was.

One lobe of my brain was paralyzed with laughter. The other lobe attempted to punch its way free of my skull, jump into the TV set and strangle her.

Celine sings Elvis. Celine sings AC/DC. Next up, Celine sings Gwar!

Oh Lordy, I just had to go find that clip. Watch at your own risk. Fail sanity check and lose 1d100 SAN points…

Wow, that was horrid.

I have to agree. The harmonies she selected were just… bizzare.

I died a little inside thanks to that video.

She’s about 1/100th the talent of even a dead Presley. It’s really, really awful.

Perhaps this will help. Clips of Presley with the background of his awesome version of Mystery Train. The dude really was one of the greatest ever.

Or the song without Dion. Gives me chills every time.

Why do you people post these links?
Why do I click on them?

I don’t know why I click on those links. I’m usually paralyzed by horrified fascination. This time, though, I managed to close the tab before I lost the remnants of my sanity. :shudder:

I must be a naive soul. I looked at the thread title and wondered who would dare say anything bad about Dion DiMucci or Elvis.

Now I know better, and am worse off for the experience.

Between her and Jim Carrey, you Canucks are going to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. We didn’t pawn Henry Kissinger off on you, did we?

Stranger

Yikes. Regardless of the quality of the outcome, I’m offended by the crassness of eerily projecting a dead artist like that to make money for a franchise he never knew about.

I can’t think of another singer with such a potent combination of looks, charisma, and singing ability. Ever.

(Off to stick more pins in my Colonel Parker doll.)

Eh, it can’t really be much worse than Wayne Newton covering “Gangster Paradise”. It was for New Year’s Eve… He was covering all of the most popular songs of the previous year. I’m sure it’s somewhere on YouTube, but I’m merciful (and lazy) enough not to hunt up a link.

re: The Celine Dion AC/DC cover

I had forgotten how painful that was. That really was one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever watched. And who was the other chick onstage with her? Wasn’t that Anastasia, or whatever her name was, enjoying minute 12 1/2 of her 15 minutes of fame?

You know, the worst thing in that video isn’t even Celine Dion. She can’t help being Celine: smarmy, crass, and generally unlistenable in spite of her nimble voice. No, the worst part of that musical root canal is Dave Navarro, who is gamely playing guitar. I’m sure they dragged him into this in hopes of lending some of his rock credibility to the proceedings, but trying to lend rock credibility to Celine Dion is like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a garden hose.

Can we please take up a collection for Dave, so that he never has to do anything like that again?

My, she really is very skinny isn’t she? I think I’d noticed it before but I pay very little attention to her and I had forgotten. No wonder she had to emmigrate. How could anyone get through a Canadian winter with a body like that???

Curse you OneCentStamp! You made me watch that video again! I hadn’t noticed Navarro so I rewatched it. And I still can’t say I noticed him. Was he playing lead guitar, doing the solo??? That person’s face was hidden by his/her hair. I’ve actually not seen him with his hair quite as long as that guitar player’s, in addition- at the time of the guitar solo either Celine or the other singer said to the guitar player “C’mon, Girlfriend!” so my guess was that the guitar player was a woman.

The person doing the solo was Meredith Brooks. She had that one song, “Bitch” or something like that (I’m a bitch. I’m a lover. I’m a child. I’m a mother…"). Although to me, I know her more as the person who got pelted with rocks and stuff when she opened for the Rolling Stones in Argentina. .

Ah, my apologies to all! I had my wires crossed. The Dave Navarro cameo was on Mariah Carey’s version of Def Leppard’s “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak.” :rolleyes: ← me