The Olympics Post Mortem Singing

Last night in Vancouver -- after a luger died and nothing was really done in terms of an investigation but before a hydraulic lift frigged up during the watershed moment of the opening ceremonies -- there was some singing. And while kd lang got a lot of kudos for her performance of Leonard Cohen's signature, there were a few low points.

Although many panned Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado for them synching their tune Bang Their Drums, it's often the safest, easiest route for performers to do in such a huge situation. The same thing happened during the Beijing Games with their "Olympic song."

But perhaps the worst of the worst was the opening tune, an anthem that's been sung before in Canada because it's our national anthem. It wasn't the singing of the song that was horrid, although making the song come off like a sexy jazz number vocally is ridiculous, but the arrangement.

In a nutshell, that arranger is deaf. You would have to be deaf to listen to that....

Three different tempos and structures were used for the tune, with the English sections in a different tempo from each other while the middle French portion was sped up somewhat to fit the normal pattern of the song. In the end it was just abysmal and embarrassing, almost as embarrassing as watching those poor Native Canadians dancing continually for 3 hours while everyone else stood around or took a break.

Hopefully the concerts they have set for Vancouver come off a bit better than some of those opening acts. They couldn't be much worse.