The Paralympic Closing Ceremonies were fun! I loved the steampunk aesthetic. The homemade-look and the focus on using a more central subset of the stadium meant the whole event felt more intimate and cohesive than its predecessor ceremonies. The giant fish! The dinosaur car! Brief glimpses of a fast-moving motorcycle on a high wire! Lots of whirling flame! Really good use of the pixels too, well-thought out and integrated, not just "oh look, cool pixels we can do things with!"
We had to pause the broadcast periodically to look after little Grouting. Near the end, pausing, we heard booming outside. Distant but loud and thought - fireworks at Stratford? They were! And twenty minutes of unpaused broadcast later, we saw those we'd heard via streamed aerial shots.
Help me with cultural ignorance: why are Coldplay so derisible? FB comments make it clear they are. I mostly only knew them from the one song of theirs I have on DDR.
We had to pause the broadcast periodically to look after little Grouting. Near the end, pausing, we heard booming outside. Distant but loud and thought - fireworks at Stratford? They were! And twenty minutes of unpaused broadcast later, we saw those we'd heard via streamed aerial shots.
Help me with cultural ignorance: why are Coldplay so derisible? FB comments make it clear they are. I mostly only knew them from the one song of theirs I have on DDR.
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owlfish- S. Worthen
- S. Worthen
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FYI - Noticed the word steampunk applied to the pre-Rapaelite exhibition in The Guardian's review this morning - I didn't realise the word had spread to the mainstream...
I don't know. I've not heard very much of their music, but it's always seemed pretty inoffensive to me, and certainly more original and more tuneful than most of the other stuff that gets airtime these days. I guess it's just another one of those things I didn't get the memo for, like how we're apparently supposed not to like Paul McCartney any more.
Everything sounds like Coldplay now
Everything sounds like Coldplay now
No other sound is allowed
Everything sounds like Coldplay now
He also had a followup on the Now Show called Now Coldplay Sound Like Everyone Else.
Their repertoire was a bit of an odd fit, but after the hodgepodge of the Olympic closing ceremony music (even if there was some enjoyable music in there), it was rather nice to have the coherence of fewer performers. On the other hand, many of the songs were shoehorned in to make them relevant. (They reflected four seasons? Really?)
The DDR song involves lots of jumping back and forth with two feet - I think of it as pretending to be a bell.
But then again, I'm not too cool to admit that I like Britney Spears. I once read an article that called Coldplay are the power baladeers of the 2000s, putting them in the same category as Air Supply and their ilk. Which might make some people squirm. But I like Air Supply too.
The lyrics to some of their songs can be interpreted as a good fit to the paralympics, and there are not very many popular bands who could fit the paraorchestra so seamlessly into their repertoire.
I thoroughly enjoyed the show (from a recording so we could ff the adverts) and thought the steampunk/homemade theme fit the paralympic tone very well indeed. The commentator made the connection that many of the prosthetics are custom modified, sometimes by the user themselves, and that parts are frequently re-used for other purposes. The parasaurus was my favourite too, until the fish gained it's eyes and scales.
I couldn't fathom the four seasons theme at all, for any part of it really.
No it's not that at all. I actually find them offensive. Like others, I'm looking at you Bono, they've taken the precious, life affirming glory that is great rock n roll and made it boring. It's music by focus group, it's bland and derivative, the commodification and packaging of something great and edgy into something that's easy to package and sell. It's lifeless, devoid of passion or inspiration, it is to music what pornography is to sex, a cheapening, demeaning soulless transaction that leaves you dead and empty inside, the very definition of indie landfill.
As you may have gathered, I'm not a fan.