An Idea

[troon8]

I'll see your Beiber and raise you an Adele

Rebbecca Black.

All in!

[hostrauser]

I'll see your Beiber and raise you an Adele

Adele's music is actually reasonably decent and she has an incredible voice, though. (But it wouldn't translate well to the field, true.)

[Kamarag]

Adele's music is actually reasonably decent and she has an incredible voice, though. (But it wouldn't translate well to the field, true.)

Adele became a punchline in indoor guard circuits nationwide this year. If I hear "Turning Tables" one more freaking time...

[N.E. Brigand]

Yeah... the Current Top 40 doesn't make me think drum corps.

Here is the current (as of this week) Top 100 songs in the country. Feel free to peruse and see how many of them could translate well on the field: Billboard Top 100.

Point taken.

Don't give up quite so easily, gk. Surely you must have had some songs in mind when you made your initial post, just perhaps not those on the current top 100.* What were they? The most important question to ask yourself is: if you took away the lyrics, would the song still be interesting? (Yes, the rules allowing amplification make it possible to keep the lyrics, but if a corps is relying on voice, then usually the brass is being lost.) Hum or whistle it to yourself. The necessary harmonies can be added by a good arranger. (There have certainly been songs that were improved when arranged for corps.) Despite Jeff's comment, some Adele songs, for instance, are probably melodic enough to adapt. ("Rolling in the Deep" is cousin to "Lady Madonna" --hmmm, a quick Google search shows that quite a few others have noticed this as well-- and Beatles music has frequently been used in drum corps.) As hostrauser has observed while I was typing this. Bieber not so much -- score one for Mr. Boo.

*For easier reference, these are the top ten from fsubone's link:

1. Somebody That I Used To Know (Gotye featuring Kimbra)

2. Payphone (Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa)

3. We Are Young (Fun featuring Janelle Monae)

4. Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen)

5. Wild Ones (Flo Rida featuring Sia)

6. Starships (Nicki Minaj)

7. What Makes You Beautiful (One Direction)

8. Glad You Came (The Wanted)

9. Boyfriend (Justin Bieber)

10. Drive By (Train)

I've just listened to these. Only the Fun and (perhaps) the Gotye songs sound usable to me -- with a lot of changes. Maroon 5 have some other songs that might just suffice, but not this one. C.R. Jepsen's item is catchy, but the chorus (there is no verse to speak of, and no usable bridge) is less than eight seconds long. Some of the others have even shorter snippets of melody,** but their appeal (such as it is) derives very much from the pulsing beat, high production value, the lyrics (not that these are particularly good, and often they depend, as in the Nicki Minaj song, on presumed shock value, but they add content that an instrumental arrangement would lose), and presumably the magnetism of the performers.

**If a corps could get the rights to a couple dozen songs, they might craft together a "super-cut" of melodies otherwise too short to develop, and that might be appealing. Once.

[N.E. Brigand]

Some responses in this discussion show another facet of a debate that's been considered many times on these boards. I'll put it this way:

Who was the most important singer to die in the past two days: Donna Summer, as fans of popular music would say? Or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as fans of classical music would say?

[garfield's_kid]

well i know some will feel the need to debate this and with some it wont matter BUT do you realise the OP is like 11 or 12 years old? Gotta cut some slack...lol..just a bit! although he seems to be extremely intellegent maybe more than many adults but 12 is 12..

Thanks for sticking up for me.

[Jeff Ream]

Before you resort to vandalism, you may be missing an amazing opportunity. A Justin Beiber show could fill the stands with tween girls and ticket sales would go up. Some may be so enthralled with the activity they might join a drum corps. Hey there could be a resurgence of local corps since they'd be too young to join World Class or Open corps. The boys might join in too, because where tween girls are, tween boys follow, but tween girls quickly leave because girls are more mature at that age than boys so we might have a rebirth of the All Girls Corps. However, Justin Beiber may no longer do it. My twelve year old niece seems mesmerized by "One Direction," a British boy band created by Simon Cowell.

Not sure which corps could pull it off. Velvet Knights of yesteryear could have put a mop-haired kid with a horn in his hand playing "Baby, Baby, Baby," and may have gotten away with it. Madison and Cavies are drum corps answer to boy bands, but it would never happen. I suppose it would have to be Crown. They did a great job with "Rach Star," maybe it's not too late to scrap the plans for this year's show and do "Rach Star II:Teen Idol."

the only way that show will fill the stands if Beiber himself is there

[Jeff Ream]

Adele became a punchline in indoor guard circuits nationwide this year. If I hear "Turning Tables" one more freaking time...

now now, let's not go bitter earth here

[ibexpercussion]

Teal Sound did it very successfully in 2009 and 2010. 2009 in particular featured Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Christina Agulara, and Coldplay.

I struggle with Coldplay on the marching field. There was a group ,that was in the same class as the group I teach, this past year that played music from Coldplay. It seemed like the same riffs, chord progressions, and drum rhythm for about 8-10 minutes. So, it is hard to say Coldplay goes well on the field. IMHO

[corpsband]

Adele's music is actually reasonably decent and she has an incredible voice, though. (But it wouldn't translate well to the field, true.)

I'm not so sure. A lot of corps have done her sort of stuff successfully. Takes the right arranger but it can work (especially as ballads). Crown took Wild Horses (which was pretty much the most overplayed song in WGI for a year) and made it work really well !