I have made absolutely no secret of my love for this TV show in my previous posts (check them out if you already haven’t) but even as a massive “Gleek” (I guess, though I hate the word) I don’t love anything unconditionally, and I am more than happy to critique this show all day long. That said, I do love the show a great deal more than I hate it (I don’t hate it at all) … though if you do hate this show, this list will only add fuel to your burning fire of hatred.
I am also not the type of person who would ever argue that Glee musical covers have the power to ruin the originals. I believe any one who thinks a cover of a great song can actually ruin that song is a little strange, and any one who doesn’t watch Glee because they believe Glee ruins songs are too insecure and too protective of their precious precious music. You wouldn’t refuse to go to a Karaoke bar because you didn’t want to hear people “ruin” your favorite songs, and it is the same with watching Glee. Glee isn’t trying to replace great bands and artists and most, if not all of the time, Glee covers are done out of respect for the artist and band. Added to this the fact that Glee covers really good bands that most Top 40 teenagers will never have heard of, and after they cover a band it is often the original song they cover that charts higher on iTunes than the Glee cover itself.
Plus, if you claim to love music you really shouldn’t be able to deny not only the talent of most of the cast members- honestly, Lea Michele and Amber Riley in particular have almost unmatchable amazing voices you should be in awe of… but you also shouldn’t be able to deny that on many many occasions Glee covers are actually arranged fairly well and sound pretty great. This however is not that list. Because, although I like Glee covers 70 percent of the time, the other 30 percent not so much.
This is my Top 10 list of the covers I loathed. Press “Next” to start with the 10th worst Glee cover…
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10 Comments
No mention of the “Crazy in Love/Hair” mashup? Not only was it terrible, with the New Directions donning jeans and wigs, but it’s even at the top of Sue Sylvester’s most hated performances list!
Oh Yes. Forgot about that one… not sure it’s quite top 10 ten but terrible it really is. At least the show recognized this, and I remember the performance was never supposed to be anything other than terrible.
You missed the point of Baby one more time. they were totally redoing the mannerism and everything for the Brittany video. Bad lip synching and all.
No, I got that. But still, I just hated the whole thing- maybe it worked on you but not me. I just didn’t find it funny at all- hated the whole episode pretty much. Because I knew it wasn’t supposed to be serious this is why I placed 9th… if it was meant to be serious it would have featured much higher up the list.
I agree with Candles, Darren sounds great but Chris is far too screechy. Ohio was very boring. Jolene was pointless.
I sometimes find Lea’s voice very hit and miss. Whilst she is, undoubtedly a gifted singer, some songs make her sound very little girlish and as if she is on helium like in Gives You Hell by All American Rejects. The song just sounded awful with her style of voice. I also despised Dinosaur(Ke$ha) sang by Britney in one of the prom episode and Do You Want to Touch Me by Holly Holiday. Whilst I like her Cee Lo number, this was just over-kill.
Though I haven’t seen “Hell-O” in a long time I recall actually quite liking Lea’s rendition of Gives You Hell myself… I really like her voice.
Though I wrote this before I had seen the majority of Season 4, if I were to write it today I would probably include “Celebrity Skin” in this list and maybe “Let’s have a Kiki”. Thanks for reading.
You’re welcome, I enjoyed reading it. I agree with Let’s Have a Kiki. It’s a stupid song anyway so how did Glee expect to redeem it. Funnily enough I didn’t mind Celebrity Skin, that much.
It’s not that I didn’t like the singing or even the performance to Celebrity Skin… I just don’t like when musical numbers either come out of nowhere completely, are entirely unnesesery or are overally unrealistic (and by this I mean even by Glee’s standards). That particular song (along with Let’s Have a Kiki) felt too forced into the show and a waste of time this season… though I think those are the only two song examples from this season I think served virtually absolutely no purpose in their episodes.
Yeah I get your point there, Daniel, I think Glee is in danger of stepping into High School Music territory sometimes. Which is strange because I thought Ryan M wanted the songs in the show to have a purpose and be (semi-)realistic.
I am all for crazy, unrealistic numbers in Glee. Much of the criticism “haters” of the show give Glee is the fact that everything is very unrealistic but I think if you accept that Glee exists in a somewhat “fantasy parallel universe” and just have fun with the show you can appreciate it for what it is meant to be.
That said, recently (well, since the third season onwards at least) Glee has crammed in a couple too many musical numbers per episode than really is needed. I think 5 should be standard, 8 is really pushing it and 10 is ridiculous (perhaps 7 is acceptable for tribute episodes). The more numbers an episode has, the more lazy the script has to be in order to fit these numbers into the episodes and make them make sense in the context of the story.
The songs are far more powerful when the characters really have to sing in the moment, or are singing because they are feeling emotions too powerful for words (how cheesy did that sound?). The musical numbers don’t really work when you can tell the writers just wanted to cram one of their favorite songs into the show, regardless of whether or not the song actually works in the episode.
I have heard that an episode coming up shortly (4×18 I think) only features 3 songs so I am very curious to see what this episode looks like considering this is something Glee hasn’t done since early in the first season.
Any way, I somewhat regret writing this article because people are too critical of this show than really they should be- especially the fans. Ultimately I am glad that a show like this is still on television (it’s a nice break from all the serial killer/ horror-murder shows on TV currently- not that I’m complaining, I watch a good percentage of them) and even the worst episodes of Glee or the worst musical numbers are still at the very least entertaining.