Sun, 7 Aug 2016, 5:01 pm: You want a great song for an Olympics theme. And if it can’t be great (apparently it usually can’t, since most are mediocre), it should at least be good. Freddie Mercury’s 1992 opera-infused “Barcelona” was memorable (bonus points for being named for the host city). Pet Shop Boys’ entry for the 2012 London Games, “Winner,” was far from one of their best, but it was above the line.
A good-but-not-great Olympics theme song can be improved if there’s inspiring symbolism in the choice of artist. The Four Tops’ “Indestructible” in 1988 was made better because The Four Tops proved they were exactly that by cutting the record three decades into their career. (Did you know they had the same four members from 1956 till 1997?) Gloria Estefan’s 1996 “Reach” was only so-so but got brownie points because of Estefan’s own remarkable “reach” for a comeback after she almost died in 1991.
Kids today don’t know what they’re missing. I got the rafter-shaking, heart-swelling, vocal chord-throbbing Whitney Houston passion rocket “One Moment in Time” at the 1988 Atlanta Games. Not only the best Olympics theme song E V E R , it’s my favorite Whitney track of her entire career.
For this current Olympics, the official theme (God, it hurts my heart to say it) is the wet noodle “Rise” by perpetual Madonna wannabe Katy Perry. Surely I wasn’t the only viewer of the video premiere during Thursday’s NBC Olympics preview who was hoping the strings on that gigantic parachute would snap.
I’m no composer, but if your song is called “Rise” and you intend it to be inspirational, wouldn’t you want to write an actual rise into it? Build to a crescendo? Soar to a dramatic third verse? Hell, at least work in a key change at the end? This Perry tune just lies there. No trace of a beat even appears. The only thing it made “rise” was my hand to grab the remote to mute the tv.
Much better was the music during the opening ceremonies, most of it written and performed by authentic Brazilians. I would’ve jumped up and samba-ed and bossa nova-ed with ’em, but my legs were worn out from leaping up from the couch with a raised whiskey glass every time a European country I love entered in the Parade of Nations.
Despite Ryan Seacrest’s threat (“You’ll be hearing this song A LOT over the next sixteen days”), the Perry nonstarter has not been played even once during any of the first two days of coverage. The only time it’s reared its overly coifed head was in that premiere of the video the night before the opening ceremony. Maybe the International Olympic Committee realized what I would’ve happily told ’em a long time ago: a hologram of Whitney singing anything is better than anything Perry is ever gonna come up with. Fire up that projector! And I don’t mean the one that turns the stadium floor into a Q*Bert screen.