Has Paris any idea what an Olympic theme sounds like?
NewsThis is the official musical theme of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, composed by Victor le Masne.
It’s called Parade.
This was London 2012.
Your call.
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The French can never do it as well as you Brits. Be smug while your little island floats off into the sea.
The British isles will never float off, they’ll just sink back into the ocean with the rising seas from global warming.
Good thing Britannia rules the waves because Brits will be living off battleships and offshore platforms
Actually, Chariots of Fire was composed by Vangelis, a Greek, in celebration of a century ago when the British actually won a foot race. 🙂
So you are saying that Mo Farah isn’t British?
Why not? I’d be interested to know.
In Paris.
Should’ve taken John Williams and his works for Olympic Games: ’84, ’88 (South Korea or Calgary, don’t know which), ’96, and ’02.
I have heard it three weeks ago with the LA Phil it was great
Whoops, meant to say “taken as inspiration”
Sounds like the sound track for a really bad Netflix movie.
I thought it sounded like the sort of thing a TV network puts on if their transmitter lets them down.
Sounds like Nielsen…
Which Nielsen?
Just ‘like’ Nielsen…Nielsen’esque’ if you prefer…
Leslie?
It’s ”game music.”
“Jeux”?
The french just try to be sophisticated with an occasion that is absolutely sure to withstand any attempt at sophistication and yes, then something like this turns-out.
‘Jeux’ on the other hand, is farther removed from Olympic Games than Aldebaran:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0S5hNRbV1k
Oh, John! You’re just in a snit because they didn’t select your submission.
Actually, they did, but then Le Pen intervened: ‘too difficult’.
I don’t know which is worse.
So London copied “Chariots of Fire?”
Copied nothing. Used it. And why not.
Why not? What has cocktail piano music tinkling by a Greek to do with soprt. It stank as a film score and stank at the Olypmics. They might as well have kept the original Leo Arnaud.
I thought it worked fine as a film score. But why it worked at the Olympics was that it was instantly and almost universally recognisable as a theme about sport and effort and in fact the Olympics, so set an appropriate musical atmosphere.
Ah, the differences in country and culture–Paris a bit over dramatic for its use and London full of bombast. Both full of a bit of ‘sound and fury and signifying 0. Let the games begin.
It won’t be too long before generic pap like this is just farmed out to AI. Maybe it has happened already?
I just asked an AI to write a theme tune for an Olympic Ceremony and it came up with this:
https://www.udio.com/songs/rzNDQ9iPshnRni3PTik9T3
I’ve heard worse. Not often, but I’ve definitely heard worse.
That AI has taken music lessons. It would do very well with sonic art.
I quite like your Udio take
I thought it did well, as most of these things waft along harmonically without really going anywhere, so it turned out something semi-fit for purpose.
This tech is in its infancy. Even in a year it will be so much better and poses a real challenge for composers of commercial music.
That track was produced from a simple text prompt in minutes.
Mon Dieu! More cowbell please. Leave it to the French for this. John Williams save us!
Perhaps a relief from the usual clichéd militaristic heraldry, the pounding thrusts of the victorious, the erection of flags in celebration of nationalism, the rigidity of the unbeaten, the stiffness of the triumphant? Instead a celebration of the romance of transcendence, a melding together in celebration of our common humanity?
Le Tombeau de Coubertin
Brilliant! Chapeau!
Meanwhile, Satie’s estate should sue for appropriation of his title.
As for me, I could only tolerate 90 seconds of Le Masne’s concoction. Listening to some cleansing Couperin strikes me as a good idea.
It did unravel quickly, didn’t it?
Was it created by ai music generaton? sure sounds like it.
Michael: I just asked an AI to write a theme tune for an Olympic Ceremony and it came up with this:
https://www.udio.com/songs/rzNDQ9iPshnRni3PTik9T3
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Jeez, LOL. That’s better than what the folks in Paris came up with. The official 2024 tune is a jumble of “WTF?!” Snippets of it are good, but most of it smacks of Eurotrash—similar to Americatrash. SMH.
Most of the score for the 2012 Olympics, however, was lifted straight from a movie of the early 1980s. So for those games that was a bit lazy. But 2024 is a case of “why bother?”
The original Olympic anthem and the composition for the 1984 games are generally the more fitting or memorable.
When the chorus enters, it just sounds like bad Imitation Morricone.
Ennio Morricone always composed the right music for the right purpose. I’m sure he would have composed a wonderful Olympic theme.
Music to snooze by.
But the French have already a ‘Parade’- and that is a much better one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Chq1Ty0nyE
The craftsmanship is stunning. If the automation curve bug for cowbell at 1:46 stays this way for stadium playback I’m sure there won’t be a functioning piece of PA or audience attention/hearing left for the rest of the song – which might actually be a good thing…
I’d rather Sadie’s Parade any day.