h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah true, it's also a great use of expression for many people. I may have to go check out your post then!

oh another over-rated one... Rhianna. one-trick-pony

Albeit with the most covered song of all time.

(Not saying I'm a huge fan, like. She looks nice, mind.)

"the most covered song of all time"

Rihanna sang "Happy Birthday"?

To whom?

Also, didn't Marilyn Monroe do a slightly more famous version?

So if she's covering Marilyn, it hardly counts as her singing "the most covered song ever", does it?

I'm assuming we only count recorded versions.

But anyway...it's an urban (sic) myth, so. There was a story going round that 'Umbrella' had surpassed 'Louie Louie'. But even that doesn't surpass 'Yesterday', it seems.

*Rate* of cover versions, maybe.

I sometimes enjoy a chortle at the hippies who named their daughters 'Rhiannon' after the Fleetwood Mac song.

Igor Stravinski did a very strange arrangement of "Happy Birthday." The tune was there, but the individual notes were octaves apart. Quite a lot of jumping around....

N-nn-no, not Van!

(I think it's safe enough to slag off Van the Man at the mo, don't worry. But mark my words and remember I said this - when he passes away we'll be naming streets after him! )

The passage of time -- large amounts of it -- does a pretty good job of winnowing out whoever was over-rated during his/her lifetime. If rock music seems to have a high rate of retention in the public's collective memory, that's only because it hasn't been around as long as opera [400+ years and counting], the symphony [almost 300 years], and folk music [no one really knows how long, as many early examples are presumed lost]. Hip Hop and Rap are even younger. Musical theater? I read somewhere that the earliest known musical play was Adam de la Halle's "The Play of Robin and Marion" (1283). Styles change every so often, so it probably would not have a long run if it went on Broadway or London's west End nowadays.

Chances are, pretty nearly *all* living musicians are over-rated. Does it matter? Not to me, though I cultivate a probably delusional hope that I know the few who are *not* over-rated.

Indeed. There is a strange conceit that great art is meant to be A Lasting And Eternal Monument. Why? What's wrong with ephemera?

The joy of some of the greatest pop music is that it's of its time and of its place. So what if it doesn't last forever? So long as everyone dances when the music plays.

To be honest, I like the idea of a lifespan as a collection of moments. My collection differs from yours, but both are special. Some of the precious moments that I remember fondly might not have had any impact had they happened to you. Taste is very individual, surely, but why does the music industry use marketers to construct music to lure 12-year-old girls? Or 14-year-old boys? This puts the business in "music business," but where is the art? Sometimes the promoters put together performing groups. That's how the Monkees came to have a television show in the 1960s. That's how "New Kidso n the Block" came to be.

Another way to look at a life is as a narrative with an arc. Or, a link in a chain stretching back into the past and/or foreward into the future.

That's how 'X Factor' came to be.

I've noticed that some famous pop stars take to writing symphonies [Paul McCartney] or musicals [Paul Simon] or operas [The Who, Rufus Wainwright],or some combination thereof. Danny Elfman went on to be a regular composer of film scores.

What are people's thoughts on this? Is it akin to the dualism described in "My Six eeks with Marilyn," in which themovie star wants to be a great actress, and the great actor wants to be a movie star? Popularity breeds a desire for great respect?

Cleo...be-bop-doooo-wah-bop-de-boop-beep-diddy-whoop-wat-bop-ta-rah-whoooooooosh-wah....Laine

How ironic it's called scat!!!!!!

Scat? I thought the late Ella Fitzgerald was the queen of scat. Do you think scat is overrrated, or just Cleo Laine's approach to it?

>>What are people's thoughts on this? Is it akin to the dualism described in "My Six eeks with Marilyn," in which themovie star wants to be a great actress, and the great actor wants to be a movie star? Popularity breeds a desire for great respect?<<

To some degree it's a false dichotomy. Bear McCreary was initially noted (famous is too strong a word) for his band but then went on to do film and TV scores, most notably the new BSG, and was exceptionally good at it (in fact I need to mention him in the other thread).