Jeremy Jordon and Oklahoma

I thought this was kind of lovely.......

Doesn't this just sh*t on the R&H legacy?  I mean it doesn't even sound like their work.

Kinda strange to see Laura Osnes introducing this. Awhile back she talked badly about the 1997 TV production of Cinderella for adding a pop sound to the Cinderella score.

I think there is some difference to adding a pop sound to a PRODUCTION vs a single.

 

That being said: I just don't get it.  If you didn't want to sing what they wrote, why bother doing it at all?

Big fan of Jeremy Jordan and of R&H, so I was very excited when I saw posts about this song. But it is not a pop version of a song from Oklahoma!  It's just a song that happens to have the same lyrics. Other than that, there is zero connection to R&H. And it sounded like they used whatever production equipment they use on the voices on Glee to Jordan's voice, so that makes it even worse. 

Well at least the lyrics and short intro. are the same, the rest is pure ****e.

Steal someone else's lyrics then waffle away with your own 'tune' till you run out of ideas.

Way to go.

It doesn't upset me like some others, but I agree, other than the lyrics this is completely unrecognizable. Unlike the many freewheeling jazz riffs on R&H songs or Fred Wells's exquisite if liberal arrangements for A Grand Night for Singing, this just doesn't sound like the R(&H) tune it claims to render.

Updated On: 1/15/19 at 04:10 PM

Sorry not a fan of it, but I am of him... it's not Oklahoma, it's not a pop song, and the hokey city sunrise has to go!

dramamama611 said: "I think there is some difference to adding a pop sound to a PRODUCTION vs a single.



That being said: I just don't get it. If you didn't want to sing what they wrote, why bother doing it at all?"

The other day, I heard a very convincing argument against the extension of copyright protection beyond the 56 years that was the norm for most of the 20th century. The gist was that culture always builds on what comes before it; so extending Disney copyrights far into the 21st century is a detriment to the culture as a whole.

I agree with dMama that there is a difference between doing a pop cover and a performance within the musical play. (Years ago, Sammy Davis, Jr. played Littlechap in a revival of STOP THE WORLD...! He had made a standard of his version of "What Kind of Fool Am I?" and that is what he sang in the show: HIS version. Not a single note of the original melody. The problem was that in that moment, he became SDJr doing his night club act and Littlechap was forgotten. I thought THAT was a travesty.)

But Jordan doing an over-produced cover of "Mornin'" doesn't bother me, as long as he keeps it out of productions of OKLAHOMA!

To wit, is anybody bothered by Nina Simone's cover of "Feeling Good" from ROAR OF THE GREASEPAINT...? Apparently not, since everyone has covered it, including the makers of TV commercials.

I'm more surprised by the video. Why is Jordon singing about cows and corn while gazing out at the NJ Palisades?

Can we just throw in the Leslie Uggams version of 'June etc etc'. At least the melody was still there--there's improv and there's improv.