I’ve searched and I’ve searched, but I can’t seem to find any threads on the World Trade Center situation…
Anyway, I’ve got a rant about Collective Soul’s new/old song “World I know” which I heard tonight.
For those that haven’t, it’s their song…but with splices of news clips thrown in, and around, and throughout, and on top of, and in between the song.
To put it mildly, it’s crap. Crap in every way imaginable.
Let’s run through the crapfest.
The song is originally about a guy who wants to commit suicide but doesn’t. I’m willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt, though, because the lyrics sorta seem to fit the occassion.
However, you can barely hear the lyrics. There are SO MANY newsclips thrown in, it’s like the song was an afterthought.
Speaking of the newsclips…why? I saw the news yesterday. I saw the news today. I’ve heard the news on the radio. I’ve listened to most of those clips for real. If I wanted to get the news, I wouldn’t be listening to your song.
If you’re trying to pay tribute, you’re doing a piss poor job. You guys probably rushed like maniacs to find sound bites, any sound bites that came close to fitting in during the pauses in the songs. Occasionally you didn’t even bother doing that.
You make people feel guilty for not liking the song. Gosh, how could we hate it? It’s about America now.
You’ll use the guilt to get people to listen and to buy the commemerative CD which I have no doubt you’re packaging now.
I liked the original song. This is just four minutes of pure crap. It’s not even that it’s disrespectful. It’s shoddy work and extremely manipulative.
Doc, your homophobic comments were not called for. And I for one resent the hell out of them. You want to rant about Elton John rewritting Candle in the Wind for Diana’s funeral ok I can deal with that. But that other bullshit has to go.
Ignorance? So you’re telling me Elton John’s not queer as a chocolate frog? This is The Pit, isn’t it? The validity or lack thereof of a sexual lifestyle is for some reason not a valid Pit topic?
Okay, fine. So tell me, who audited EJ’s books then? Did ALL proceeds go to charity? Or was it “most” proceeds? What charity? Why was a lot of press given to sound bites saying proceeds were going to charity, but nothing seemed to have been said about how much or when it was actually given?
And where’s the line between “memorializing” an event, and simply using that event to increase one’s own fame?
Maybe I’m just jaded by (expletives deleted) like Jesse “Love Child” Jackson and Al Sharpton, who’ll rush to get in front of whatever cameras are handy and use them as his own personal pulpit, and pervert whatever event has just occured to his warped ideology.
I surfed past MTV and they were showing an MTV News… and that struck me more as shameless self-promotion than news, as if MTV was doing great civic works to help people involved…
Note that most of the time those tribute songs that are just the regular song spliced with news reports aren’t made by the band at all and won’t be available on CD; they’re put together by DJs at radio stations. Like when Dale Earnhardt died, every country station in the United States made a different Dale Earnhardt tribute version of The Dance by Garth Brooks. Garth had nothing to do with that. I doubt Collective Soul had anything much to do with the subject of your rant, except for having produced the original song before it got futzed with. And I’m sure if I turned on my radio right now I’d hear The Dance interspersed with news clips again.
That’s one thing I thought of racinchikki, while writing the rant. That’s why I didn’t go into this long list of “fucking felchers!” and end up directing it at the wrong person.
If Collective Soul has done this, I’m embarrassed for them. If not, I apologize for implicating them. I suppose I’ll call up the radio station today and find out the truth.
I actually heard this song last night because they’d “had so many requests to play it again.” Yikes.
Doc Nickle, first what does the man’s sexuality have to do with it ? Elton John and Diana were friends, however he wanted to pay tribute to her and where any money from that went has nothing at all to do with who he does the mattress dance with. Second calling someone names like “assfuck queerbait” isn’t acceptable anywhere.
I am a straight woman, but I do have family members who are gay and would not want someone calling my cousin that. There is a huge difference between calling someone an asshole and using the ignorant hateful words you used.
Well, for one thing, Elton John was a personal friend of Princess Diana. For another thing, many people were already playing “Candle In The Wind” as a tribute to her. Since that song was specifically about Marilyn Monroe, Elton John really didn’t feel it appropriate to use the original version as a memorial to Princess Di.
How about this for a demarcation line - if you actually knew the person who was killed, you can write a song about it.
Throwing that comment in like an arbitrary descriptive insult is what makes it a bigoted comment. That sentence had nothing to do with whether Elton John is gay, or whether being gay is acceptable or not. Your point was (erroneously I might point out) that Elton John made a fortune off the song he re-wrote. Somehow you had to include a reference to his homosexuality as if it was relevant. That comment reflects more on you than on him.
The line would be crossed if EJ had released the song as a single and kept the money, or performed “Candle In The Wind '97” at his concerts between “Rocket Man” and “Bennie and the Jets”.
However, as you’ve already been told, the proceeds from “Candle In The Wind '97” went to charity (£3M in 1999; I don’t have a more current figure) and after singing the tribute at his friend Diana’s funeral he promised to never, ever perform it again.
Oh, and since we’re in the Pit, let me add that you’re a homophobic jackass.
Fine, I hereby duly apologize for any and all previously-posted derogatory remarks, and further apologize for any direct or indirect insult I may have caused.
Let me instead say that I find profiteering, of nearly any sort, off of an event such as this or Diana’s death, even if EJ was a close friend, distasteful to say the least.