Voiceplay Christmas

[igenlode]

Watch on YouTube

Not their latest, but I actually like it better than Geoff's backlit black leather "God Rest Ye Merry" (it's a trifle distracting hearing an ancient carol being sung with American whoa-ohs, as well).

But I have very definitely fallen down the Geoff Castellucci/Voiceplay rabbit hole in the last few months.
(As have several hundred thousand other people, looking at the shift in their subscriber numbers... :-)

[Edit: tens of thousands. Apparently I can't keep track of significant figures!]

Comments

[capri0mni]

Of course, being American, and singing this carol in music class in elementary school (back when it was required, rather than non-existent, as it is now, due to funding cuts), I didn't even think of Whoa-oh's as distracting. That just sort of happens (almost) every time an American sings an elongated "Oh" note

I do like how he played with the rhythms and harmonies, even if the visual aesthetics were an odd cobbling.

[igenlode]

That just sort of happens (almost) every time an American sings an elongated "Oh" note

Yes, a bit like the way Americans keep expressing surprise at the way aliens from outer space 'speak in a British accent' in BBC television series ;-D
It's a matter of what you consider normal and unremarkable across different cultures.

It just feels particularly odd when you're mixing the Hollywood vowels with all those decidedly un-American harmonies. (I was surprised to read people in the comments saying that they'd never heard the song sound so sad and mysterious as opposed to upbeat; it's one of those very mediaeval carols -- like "The Boar's Head Carol" and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" -- that has preserved the plangent note progressions of a much earlier era of music (see also "Greensleeves"), and it doesn't really do 'upbeat'. But I only know most of these songs in their church choral arrangements rather than in whatever modern cover versions they may have gone through...)

On an associated but unrelated note, by the way: is the expression "for sure" a piece of Florida local dialect? I've heard several of the members of Voiceplay using it in conversation as a general term of agreement (like "OK"), and it's not a turn of phrase I think I've previously come across elsewhere -- it seems to be unique to them, and it reminds me of the famous Sussex "Surelye" (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Xp_DDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT335)

I do like how he played with the rhythms and harmonies, even if the visual aesthetics were an odd cobbling.

I liked a lot of what he did with it, especially the tambour beat and the joyous dawning of light on the final chord. But it didn't inspire me with any desire to share it, whereas the other one, which I came across almost by chance, did. (And that contains a lot of very pop-style riffs/runs; but it has an overall simplicity that I think works better for the subject matter.)

I do find the choice to do a *third* video with the singers backlit in silhouette a little unimaginative in terms of lighting design -- it worked very well for "Hoist the Colours", while the "Wicked" one (which probably works a lot better for those who actually know and love the musical; as with "Halo", I don't have any prior emotional response, and it's not my sort of music) makes more sense when you read the small print to say that the set-up was an attempt to create a staging that would work for concert performance. But setting a Christmas carol apparently inside a drawing-room with the lights turned off seemed very odd. As I said, I did like the way the sunlight blossomed from outside for the finale -- but I feel you could have had that effect (like the lightning-flash that silhouettes the raised sword in "Hoist the Colours") as a one-off without needing to darken the whole interior for the rest of it!

[capri0mni]

Actually, "for sure," is a general American phrase. It's so ubiquitous in our conversation that it's almost a synonym for "yes."

It was the blue-green lighting and random props in the background that threw me off from Geoff's latest -- I think there was a step ladder, and a table, and a gramophone? It was neither modern nor old-fashioned, just cluttered. Warmer colors would have helped, and going bare-bones (like O little Town of Bethlehem).

[igenlode]

Actually, "for sure," is a general American phrase. It's so ubiquitous in our conversation that it's almost a synonym for "yes."

Oh -- I'd never consciously heard it before and had no idea! I assumed adding that on to the end of your sentence was a local trick of speech... or perhaps even a catchphrase common to that group of friends ;-)

It was the blue-green lighting and random props in the background that threw me off from Geoff's latest -- I think there was a step ladder, and a table, and a gramophone? It was neither modern nor old-fashioned, just cluttered.

That gramophone has definitely featured before -- I think in "Monster Mash" and "House of the Rising Sun". I imagine there's a limit on what they've actually got available as props...

The weird thing about the lighting was that it was basically 'outside after dark', but the set was very much an interior one. Which makes you wonder why the singer is posed in the middle of an unlit room with the curtains billowing at the windows -- if they wanted a carol-singing vibe, they could presumably have done an exterior house wall set?

The light plus the costume choices originally made me think of some kind of science-fiction setting when I saw the teaser thumbnail -- I definitely wasn't expecting a Christmas carol! Dark, high-necked, close-fitting costume plus blue/green hues equals between decks on a spaceship :-D

[capri0mni]

Dark, high-necked, close-fitting costume plus blue/green hues equals between decks on a spaceship

That would explain it -- an alien trying to understand the music of one of Humanity's major religion's songs, and almost getting it right (?)

[igenlode]

Oh, that explains the multiple identically uniformed Geoffs; clearly they are a hive-mind clone species :-D

[capri0mni]

Or at least clones. (Depends on how easy polyphonic rhythms are for hive minds to pull off)