Inaugural Music Review: Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, More

There are two songs that are totally guaranteed to be played on the AP at any 4th of July celebration in America: “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood and “Firework” by Katy Perry. Since Greenwood allowed himself to become the closest thing Donald J. Trump had to a house band, there wasn’t much suspense about what the artist was going to get for the show’s soundtrack. fireworks display on the Washington Mall that culminated in a day of festivities honoring the swearing-in of Trump’s Sworn Antagonist, President Joe Biden.

All that was missing was the part where Perry was going to “send them off,” Oh, oh, oh “” because there were few humans between Perry, standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and Joe and Dr, Jill, step out onto the balcony of their new home across town at 9:55 am ET for ooh and aah. Lit up between the two by the bombs that explode in the air, tens of thousands of flags replace the human participants who, thanks to the rioters, can no longer even socially outrun beautiful things, except on television.

The fact that the inaugural festivities were all made for television, like the Democratic convention produced by the same people six months ago, created bonuses and hurdles. The biggest benefit was the ability to involve hordes of average Americans as ephemeral cameo players in the festivities – at least throughout Wednesday afternoon’s virtual parade. ‘America’, and in some segments of the special ‘Celebration of America’ which concluded the evening. The downside was necessarily having to use so much pre-recorded material throughout the day that there was little chance that much would break through and equal the galvanizing power of an Aretha Franklin, Beyonce or even Bob Dylan performing live. during past inaugurations.

Leave it to Bruce Springsteen to crystallize the moment, at least when the moment involves, for a preponderance of the most invested viewers, a chance to literally save the world, or at least get close enough for rock ‘n’ roll. Springsteen began the 90-minute “Celebrating America” ​​telecast as one of the few performers live and on location at the memorial to share great moments with Mr. Lincoln, there to sing arguably the most touching song he has ever had. never written (at least the one that moves the most about America and paradise, not on motorcycles), “Land of Hope and Dream”. It would have been grander if the E Street Band had been there on Lincoln Circle, so viewers could enjoy the full gospel-rock of the band’s nine-and-a-half-minute version, instead of the melancholy of the three. solo and half-minute version. But on the ultimate fresh start day, it’s hard to ask for much more than the guy who could be the greatest singer-songwriter of our lives, even giving a muted version of one of his most touching classics.

(There has been so much talk over the years of ditching “The Star Spangled Banner” for “America the Beautiful.” The nation is unlikely to consider a swap, but if it did, would it be too much to throw away? “Land of Hope of Dreams” in the mix? For some of us, it’s already East the hymn.)

Musical performances also had to necessarily adhere to inspiration, which meant that the darker songs that may have crept into last summer’s Democratic convention, like Leon Bridges’ racial injustice protest song , “Sweeter”, were necessarily out of action for this feast day. Performances tipped to the right side of the middle of the road with alumni refreshed: John Legend, also personally on location in Washington, singing the Anthony Newley song popularized and identified by Nina Simon, “Feeling Good,” against a huge track. accompanying. And Demi Lovato, with a new look, with an old R & B-pop classic, “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers, on a Los Angeles soundstage. Jon Bon Jovi, who felt like an odd choice to flatten a song as rich as The Beatles’ “Here Comes to the Sun” into an unremarkable track.

Dozens of Broadway actors sang a line from an intergenerational mix “Seasons of Love” / “Let the Sunshine In”. Rate poorly there, except that, dammit, sometimes you just want to hear a keen singer-actor like Mandy Gonzalez belt up for three or four minutes by herself, instead of playing a theater-geek game of ‘who was -this? – Oops, too late. “(If only the series could have accommodated Trump’s recent hilarious satire on the Gregory Brothers, which was set on” Seasons of Love, “” 11,780 votes, “but we have to wait a day or two to get back to partisanship – good.) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s contribution to the program was speaking, so fans of “Hamilton” didn’t have the chance to have this brilliant show openly tied to the news.

Shot along the Cumberland River in Nashville, the country unit’s anthem Tim McGraw / Tyler Hubbard “Undivided” was so desperate to be harmless in its statement that there is nothing worth seeing. beat so that it most likely brings most viewers together on one side – the meh side. Moving from central to western Tennessee, a more successful couple got Justin Timberlake to hook up with Ant Clemons for their very recent co-writing, “Better Days,” joined by a choir of students from the School of Stax music nearby. The performance made this empty Memphis intersection sound eerily like the interior of a top-notch recording studio, but the combination of a take for music education, the sight of that neon Stax, and an update Not too bad day on the old one – The school’s R&B inspired tradition adds to something hard to resist.

The afternoon virtual parade, seen by far fewer viewers, was more fun, if only for the marching bands who had to do things for the cameras that they never could have had in a brisk walk of Pennsylvania Ave. The reunion of New Radicals after more than 20 years of absence for one of the most famous single hits of all time, “You Get What You Give”, was a treat, even if it seemed to deserve even more pomp and of circumstance that a sandwich between the university drums. DJ Cassidy has done his part to serve America by reuniting Kathy Sledge and Nile Rodgers, with an ever-welcome EWF side Philip Bailey and Verdine White. Andra Day added gravity to the afternoon lightness with a rooftop version of his partly BLM-themed “Rise Up”, placed atop a riser no less than the hotel. Roosevelt of Hollywood.

In the end, most of the music of the day ended up feeling at least modestly heartwarming … never gaining momentum for the fences with a bold choice or a powerful performance that would be remembered as chilling. But the previous performances, on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, came very close to this moving brand.

The COVID-19 memorial at dusk Tuesday was so powerful, even close to breaking in its path, it was almost as if the music might ruin the moment. There’s no danger of ruin, however, when it’s Yolanda Adams who comes to capture the sentiment in the song. If only there had been something other than Leonard Cohen’s deeply secular and deeply overworked “Hallelujah” to make the gospel great to sing – the solemn setting certainly required drastically reducing the number of his more irreverent lines – but if there’s anyone who can make you feel it’s okay to keep “Hallelujah” out of retirement for a few more minutes, it’s Adams, who briefly convinced us that Cohen made the intention of the song as a Christian hymn.

As for the performance trio at the swearing in am? These can be summed up in one sentence: Nailed. Not everyone will agree: haters will hate it when J.Lo does W. Guth, and Garth Brooks’ choice for “Amazing Grace” didn’t earn more points for originality than the backing vocals ” Hallelujah ”from the night before. But in their contexts of solemn swearing, they worked, as did Lady Gaga’s almost universally unassailable “star-spangled banner”.

Gaga’s national anthem was road tested, having been performed without a hitch five Super Bowls ago, and she brought it back. There are so many ways to play with that may or may not work, but the most viable approach after a few hundred years seems to be to find a midpoint between the serious church and the pizzazz show-biz, and Gaga knows. certainly how to do it. go ahead without ever worrying about it getting out of hand.

Jennifer Lopez will never be a hardcore Woody Guthrie lover’s first choice to sing “This Land Is Your Land”, but there was a winning chutzpah in her performance – first, of course, just leaving a performer from Latinx to one of the most subversive songs ever written questioning a pre-progressive America, and then the extra twists she put into it were extra doses of pure nerve. Throw “a nation under God, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all” – in Spanish? Genius, or something like that. Then scream “Let’s make some noise!” briefly return him to one of his signature shots before returning to Guthrie? It was either one of the best things of the day or the worst – let’s turn the dial and give it a boost, just for the sake of brass.

Speaking of chutzpah, however, it takes you even longer to sing a cappella at length in front of an audience of tens of millions of people. After a brief brass overture, Brooks went on his own, truly alone, with his “Amazing Grace,” before asking the audience at the house to sing along. Here, unlike anyone else on any of the inaugural bills (except maybe for McGraw and Hubbard), there was someone with something to lose. He may be in need of an extra measure of pardon, as the neighboring crowds of QAnon and QAnon have been out in force in recent days, calling for a boycott of Brooks for the sin of trying to be politically ecumenical by itself. presenting for Biden, like he has for every other living president at one point or another. He’s too good at playing in the middle to really get “Dixie Chick-ed,” and we might have suspected a hint of damage control when Brooks came up the stairs after his performance rather than sticking around and working the crowd like Gaga and Lopez. But political fear isn’t really something that affects Brooks any more than a cappella nervousness.

Brooks honestly stems from his centrism, even if that makes the left suspicious in addition to making the far right deeply enraged. In some of the non-musical moments that followed his performance – like the new vice president and first gentleman accompanying Mike Pence down the steps and gently waving his departing procession; or Obama, Carter and W hanging out together on the special night, like ex-presidents wanting to have a beer between themselves – you felt the grace he spoke of linger, even after you walked up the stairs.

Amidst all these musical considerations, it is impossible to ignore the real rock star in the room… the junior poet-winner elephant in the room: Amanda Gorman. But this is another story.