10 relatively unsuccessful music students got together in 1995 to "form" The Ten Tenors. Now re-registered at Queensland University of Technology they are set on improving their professional qualifications with a higher degree while continuing to build on "musical" successes in the United States.
They will be learning a lot, so good luck on plan a. But plan b will only happen if millions world-wide get out there and buy this CD/DVD for a musically primitive relative during what is now officially called "The Holiday Season". Serious fans of choral music will cringe with dismay. Serious fans of the operatic end of rock (ie Freddy Mercury) will wonder if Westlife were really as bad as they thought.
There are some partly-trained half-decent singers among the ten. There are some adequate pop belters with good-enough-for-the-church-choir-voices. There are lots of perfectly good musicians hacking away on sludgy arrangements with expensive instruments in the background. And there are some excruciating pop rhythm tracks in the mix of most of the butchered and/or characterless tunes.
I love choral music. Ten fine voices can cast spells that fill a cathedral and change the course of a year. I love great tunes (however banal). I love a clear ringing voice, solo or in combination. Shifting harmony is a deep joy. I enjoy classic musicals and I always cry at the end.
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But this is desolate, money grubbing, toe-curling rubbish that our stupid culture thoroughly deserves. Tony Blair probably likes it. Margaret Thatcher would have loved it. Prince Charles would choke on his organic sprouts. (the boy has some taste).
The odium is profound. If you force yourself to listen all the way through to the final Track 14 you will be subjected to a version of "Bicycle Race" that should act as a callibrating benchmark for absolute zero in musical taste. I think they're serious. But they are Australian, so they could just be a joke that outdoes Alan Partridge and Bob Downe by so much that it comes right back round from the other end. That still doesn’t make it funny. But they are kind of cute in the DVD of the stage show. Kind of.
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