what music should be permanently retired from skating?

[icedancechic]

Banish Tosca forever- Michelle ruined it!

 

[Kathleen]

OMG, that's a no-brainer.......CARMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could listen to Nessun Dorma forever, but that's JMO of course.

I also think I could possibly stand listening to the "overused" music in a short program, but not a long.

 

[icenut84]

Carmen

I can think of 4 people within the last 2 decades that skating to that at the Olympics (Witt, Thomas, Yamaguchi, Cohen), make that 5, didn't Plushenko skate to it in SLC?

Yamaguchi didn't skate to it, but more than 5 people did! You're forgetting Gordeeva & Grinkov (they used March of the Toreadors from Carmen for their 88 SP), Krylova & Ovsyannikov (their 98 FD), Yuka Sato (at least part of her 94 LP), and a billion other lower-down skaters, I'm sure.

ITA with PrincessLeppard though - I don't think any music should be "banned" from skating - it can be great if people come up with their own new interpretation of it (like Klimkin's Swan Lake SP), and/or use different selections. I'd love it if more skaters chose more original music though, like MK used to.

 

[Enero]

Thanks for the corrections berthes ghost and icenut84

There have been a ton of skaters who have interpreted Carmen and Malaguena and like you I wish that more skaters would chose more original pieces to skate to.

By doing that, right off the bat they elimated the constant comparison and they can set themselves apart (in a sense) from the rest of the field.

 

[Destiny]

Overdone music

Most definitely Carmen. Next, in no specific order: Man in the Iron Mask, Don Quioxte, Any "Swan", Malegeuna, Romeo and Juliet.

Sasha Cohen has actually skated to four on my list...three in one season. I agree with other posters on this and other forums that Sasha really needs to pick some original music. Please, Sasha, just once.

 

[tripleflutz]

anything performed by John Tesh


3axel

 

[Jill]

I wouldn't say banned, but I think anyone who attempts Ravel's Bolero is insane. It should be retired, as no one will ever be able to top Torville&Dean.

I feel the same way about Nessun Dorma. Shen&Zhao have made that music their own.

Carmen can die once and for all.

 

[hockeyfan228]

Ah, but if Swan Lake had been banned, we would never have seen Ilia Klimkin's absolutely brilliant (IMO) SP.

I like when skaters pick rarely-heard excerpts from "done" pieces, like Liang's SP to the Act IV opening of "Carmen," and Slutskaya's musical choices from Don Q. Cohen started out on the right track with the Act III pas de deux music from "Swan Lake."

Bittybug's point is the way I feel about banning music that has been done a lot. I really hate the Don Q pas de deux music and Liebestraum, but if those pieces had been banned, I never would have seen John Curry's '76 Oly LP or the Protopopovs or M&D's great LPs. And Klimkin used the "greatest hits" music from "Swan Lake", and gave a wonderful, Rothbartian gravity to it in a beautifully cut series of excerpts.

 

[sarahmistral]

I think it's all about the specific cuts used, i.e. the most distinctive part of Malaguena--there's a problem when you watch programs that are years apart but are hearing the exact same themes. Though I think Sasha rendered this brilliantly at Worlds, I also agree with those who think that lesser known parts of famous works should be exploited.

As a singer and musician, and a fanatical fs follower largely due to my lifelong passion for music, it saddens me that there's sooooo much music out there that CRIES out to be skated to, and it's passed over, neglected, or not sought out enough so that we can see another dramatic, fiery Malaguena...my mother's reaction every time she hears Malaguena on any figure skating broadcast (after watching two old tapes of Worlds in different years when Maria Butyrskaya skated to it at both, and then watching 2004 Nationals and hearing the same ol' song)---"oh, it's that woman who always skates to Malaguena." (out of the mouths of figure skating babes )

Being of Hispanic descent (Cuban-born), it's especially tiresome for me, though I appreciate my heritage, when only a select few songs become symbolic of musical cultures that are *SO* rich, diverse, and chock full of choice pieces to skate to, listen to, identify with, and so on and so forth; this is the case with Spanish music as it is with Latin American and Cuban music. I have half a mind to spend the next five years skating just so that somebody can pick some poor, neglected piece of exquisite music off the beaten path and interpret it, for crying out loud!!!!

Sarah

 

[sarahmistral]

I like the idea of trying to reinvent the presentation of the music instead of banning certain pieces. There's always mixing the music up.. kinda like what Fumie did with her classical take on "Paint it Black" and Shizuka with her techno-y take on "Swan Lake"

Also, I don't mind the broadway medleys as long as their edited well. Kinda like how Jenny Kirk's "Chicago" piece isn't.

ITA with everything you said, amazonprincess; I really get into both those short programs musically as well as the skate they bring out in the respective skaters, and the novelty of these remakes has everything to do with them. They take a classic and bring out something fresh, both musically and in the spirit in which they are skated. Kudos to Fumie and Shizuka for making them work, too!!

And bad editing is also a huge pet peeve of mine; I also think timing counts for something. After seeing Chicago everywhere, from the Oscars to Broadway, where it'd been for a while already, the ringing in my ears was just beginning to die down when Jenny's poorly edited piece came along. Then again, I'm not knocking people who like the Chicago music; entirely a matter of personal taste. I like it fine on Broadway (or did when I first heard it), but on ice, which for me is such a special stage, I think musical theater of that style doesn't work as well (for me, anyway) as, say, dance, generally speaking.

Sarah

 

[icenut84]

I wouldn't say banned, but I think anyone who attempts Ravel's Bolero is insane.

I agree - it's the same when anyone uses a piece of music that will inevitably mean they're compared to something they can't surpass. Why do it?? There was a girl at Europeans who's LP was Bolero in the first half and East of Eden in the second half! And I saw someone at my rink practicing his SP to Winter, i.e. the exact same music Yagudin used in the Olympics.

I don't think any music should be banned, not even Carmen, but if it was me I know I'd want to skate to something that wouldn't mean I was unconsciously being held up against something I probably couldn't even hope to surpass.

 

[berthes ghost]

Someone at Belgian Nats skated to EOE. Not just the same exact music cuts, but the same choreo and jump layout.

 

[thisthingcalledlove]

Carmen

I can think of 4 people within the last 2 decades that skating to that at the Olympics (Witt, Thomas, Yamaguchi, Cohen), make that 5, didn't Plushenko skate to it in SLC?

Anyway, I think my point has been made. Though I loved all the versions mentioned above, I'm totally sick of it.

Linda Fratianne used it also in 1980

 

[rjulie510]

I'm surprised that Carmina Burana has not been mentioned yet. To me, this music belongs to Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat.

 

[euterpe]

Paul Wylie owned Carmina Burana before A/P did it. I do agree, though, that A/P did a dynamite job with it, especially Gwendal with his jumps.

 

[thisthingcalledlove]

the music the dance teams used in slc should be banned, not because they were good or overused, but because they were bad. so bad i never want to hear them again, especially the russian team.