YES, YES, indeed!
So I tweeted back. These are screen images, so the tweets appear in reverse chronological order, just as they would on twitter.
I think I've blogged about these videos that appear in my tweets before but they're still on my mind.
This is one that shows Michael Jackson's audiences a lot. I think it's a composite of many audiences. MJ liked to show his audiences, because he felt that these views demonstrated that he was channelling spiritual energy from the universe into those listening. He commented later that he travelled to 40 countries, and everywhere he went people cried, fainted, lit candles &c in exactly the same places. He concluded that music, dance, and children could heal the world.
This one shows a group of singers singing "We are the World" at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010.
These are all very fascinating performers who we haven't heard much about in the USA, but who are big in their home countries. I really urge people to look into them, because it's not clear to me why we don't know about them.
I have been most interested in 費翔 Kris Phillips, because he is an American who lives in New York and performs in China. He is also a citizen of Taiwan. He went into China in 1987 -- alone -- armed only with his beautiful voice, his handsome face, and his disco dancing skills and he took that country by storm. He introduced pop music there and became a figure of similar magnitude to Michael Jackson there. We never heard a thing about it. He's the one who sings first in the video, the very tall, very handsome half Asian.
He was criticized by Taiwanese, because he was viewed as a communist appeaser. He was criticized by Chinese for being a decadent capitalist influence. Yet he went in. He seems to be a very idealistic person who loves China and wants to promote international cultural understanding.
I feel he deserves more recognition here, though I guess he likes the fact that Americans don't recognize him, while he probably can't go out on the street in China.
Tho I must say that Vitas' amazing falsetto is something that we have also been missing out on, presumably because he's Russian -- as if that should matter.
Laura Fygi is a person of fascinating mixed ethnicity. Rain is a big star in Korea. SunNan is a Chinese tenor with an absolutely lovely tone. CoCo Lee has performed here, once at the Oscars, I think.
The World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 got a virtual news blackout in the USA -- except for a few reporters who interviewed malcontents outside the event. Our press seems to have a see no good, hear no good, speak no good attitude towards China.
Other countries took the event more seriously. The city of Copenhagen sent their actual Little Mermaid statue to the festival -- THE SYMBOL OF THEIR CITY. Think about it, as if we had sent the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia. During the Expo, if you went to the place where the Little Mermaid normally stands in Copenhagen, you would find a screen with a video feed to Shanghai. Now that's commitment. I admire them for it.
By contrast, our press attitude was deplorable.
(I don't understand why I can't clear the background color out of this section. Google's blogger interface is not so great)
But the curious, and remarkable thing, was that that only the month before, a group of Americans sang "We are the World," including Josh Groban -- who is a common theme in this blog.
I erroneously said it was the same month as in China, but the YouTube dates of these videos are a bit more than month apart. I'm not sure when the recording in China actually occurred. The actual expo didn't start until May, but CocoLee uploaded her video March 31, 2010.
Still, pretty close.
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Addendum
I see that this is what Adele actually sang for Brussels -- very nice
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