Jennifer Hudson’s “One Shining Moment” (Review)

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:05:06 +0000

As the official song of the NCAA Men’s College Basketball song this song sees its fourth cover by American Idol alumni and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson. As the winning team of the 2010 Season the audience witnessed the first female to deliver the anthem.

David Barrett originally wrote this tune back in 1979 after watching the legendary Larry Bird play. It took several years, but finally Barrett approached an old college friend that in turn gave a demo to CBS. Among the debate a decision was made, and CBS decided to use the song in future NCAA Men’s College Basketball Championships as the winning team cut down the nets.

From 1987 until 1994 Barrett provided the vocal performance of the song. It was full of the passion and intensity that he wrote into the original song. After that time, Teddy Pendergrass delivered the song broadcast from 1994- 1999. From 2000 – 2002 Barrett’s version was reinstated until the legendary Luther Vandross recorded a version that played from 2003 – 2009. In 2010 Jennifer Hudson performed and recorded the anthem.

Where the others succeeded Hudson fails. Her vocals are on key and flow in tempo just fine. But where artists before her found the passion and power in the song, Hudson simply sings the song. The arrangement over times over powers her typically powerful voice as well.

Perhaps the problem is the lyrics and original tempo are more identifiable with a male vocalist, and Hudson is notorious for over produced power ballads. Where here vocals are done more for the showmanship of what they can offer and less for the emotion and passion they carry.

Overall what is delivered is an unimpressive and stale version of a song that will likely upset a number of people. What is here is an uninspired, trite mess packaged together with a name that producers thought would spark interest. But it is sub par at best.

Grade: C

No Line on the Horizon: The Twelfth U2 Hit Album

admin — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:23:24 +0000

This is twelve in line of all the studio albums which are released by the infamous Irish band called U2. This came out on the 29th of February in 2009. Now this was the next album ever since the band released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in 2004. They were supposed to release No line on the horizon as two albums but then they landed up merging the two into one.

As usual the band has mesmerized us with their twelfth album as usual and expected. Now the key men behind the reins of this album were Brian Eno as well as Daniel Lanois. They were the ones who helped with the writing of the music as well as playing of it too. Now this album has certain characters unlike the previous ones.

Some of these characters include a traffic cop, a soldier who had been serving his time at Afghanistan and finally a junkie. So the writers managed to write from different characters perspectives this way. Now every character has its own personal “story”. Now in this album you will find a lot of experimentation with different beats when it comes to the drums.

In a song which is called “Magnificent”, Eno wrote the keyboard parts which is present in the starting of the song and after that the riffs of the guitar continues on. Now we talked about the different characters which appear in various songs. Well, the drug addict appears in certain songs like “Moment of surrender” and also “Unknown caller”.

“If I go crazy tonight” was another song which was produced by Eno and it had touches of the Barak Obama campaign flavor to it, basically the lyrics did. According to the different reviews this song was basically a joyful “pop rock” composition. Now the guitar riff of the song “Get on your boots” was created by the Edge at home and it was also recorded there. Now this song is THE fastest one that U2 has ever recorded till date, it is set at 150 beats a minute.

This track was basically the missing link to the bands most famous track “Vertigo”. Going back to the characters, you also have the soldier making an appearance in the song “White as snow”. So if you are looking for a U2 album which screams out U2 and you want a successor to “How to dismantle an atomic bomb” then this is the song for you.

Chicago Concerts » Music Reviews

Jennifer Hudson’s “One Shining Moment” (Review)

No Line on the Horizon: The Twelfth U2 Hit Album