okay. i'm back and i would like to start off by say my piece on what i think about the new 'Home' video. i'll admit. hand on heart, the original is probably the best National song. but then, some people decided to destroy it. first was jj lin with that home rendition in 2004, which i felt was rather bad. though of course, that's not jj lin's worst song of course. Oh yeah, you know what song i'm talking about right? Oh yeah.

yeah, but then when i first heard this song like a few minutes ago, i thought to myself. are we trying to come up with a competition? like who can come up with the most terrible song? or are we just being prepared for the pain and suffering and torture that will be brought upon us when the end of the world dawns onto us. if that was what they were aiming for, another song would just make us just about ready. and national day is like in 6 months. so that gives them quite abit of time to decide which song to ruin and in which way. maybe autotune the "we are singapore" song? someone's gotta do it. com'on!

well, the first impression that i got (and probably most of the other people, who got the chance to be lured through links over the internet and other social networks into watching this video) when i watched this was, 'Damn, wait. Is this a cheap knock-off of the (also disastrous, might i add) Michael Jackson "We Are The World" (WATR) remake? yes it was. it just proves the fact that too many cooks spoil the broth. this broth, instead of being a pleasant, hearty and comforting broth, it turned out to be burnt and rancid. or like pee from a old man who smokes, drinks and suffers from kidney dialysis.

of course, i'm just thinking that it would be as such from what i've heard of such as i, myself, have never ever tried urine and am not intending to unless i'm stranded on an island and have no other source of hydration. and even at that, i might make the closest survivor next to me have a sip of it first, just to make sure.

but back to the song. okay, let me break it down and give you a narration of the entire video, or rather the parts that i think i should. the song starts of amazingly, with a glimmer of hope, when the orchestra fades in and makes you look into the distance with that misty-eyed look. then a china man starts singing. i dunno what went wrong.

i actually don't mind dick lee. thought he was great at jazz and all that jazz. but, obviously, he doesn't sound good standing up. come to think of it, he actually doesn't stand in Singapore Idol. okay, i take back what i said about the standing thing. a few seconds later, i saw my barber, singing with stevie wonder. then came the dude who screwed up the "Majulah Singapura". no i shall not let it rest. he screwed up the song we used to sing every morning. had we had a queen, he would have had his head chopped off. but we don't.

anyway, stephanie sun came on and looked like she was thinking in her head whether what she had earlier in her packet of mixed rice was egg or tofu. then came a part where i thought looked a bit wrong. okay, some lady (i seriously do not know her name, forgive me for this) was singing with the blind guy and she gave him a nod of encouragement or something like that.

now, with the utmost respect but, doesn't that look a lot like the same encouragement gesture that a special education teacher would give to her student when he or she is doing something worth encouraging? (let's ignore the fact that the guy isn't blind, and has some other problem like, whenever he smiles, his body just spasms.)

and then sheikh haikel steps up and probably takes the role of Wyclef Jean in the WATR remake. you know, the guy who just won't shut up. the guy who was barking and howling throughout the entire video. i wonder why there was rapping in the first place. that killed the song. and in the words of Simon Cowell, "Killing is never good".

and talking about 'never good', jj lin steps up with his trucker, worn beng-style, and doesn't actually do a bad job. but i'm still gonna facepalm myself everytime i see him. after that, many unknown, tone deaf people started singing in, what can only be described as total, apocalyptic dissonance. and just when i thought there wasn't any representation for my people (the indian community), two appeared. one saying 'yo' and the other just yodeling.

probably the saving grace was kit chan, who did the original as we all know, started singing and gave us that rush. you know, THAT rush. you can't put a finger on it, but you all of a sudden feel, forgive the pun, at home. probably that two lines gave that video a bit of 'thang' (just a word i came up with for such instances, no intentions of it catching on, but who knows eh) and of course being backed by the class joker.

and then comes to probably another moment in the video which i felt was a bit of a faux pas towards those people sensitive towards the blind folk or to those people who tend to indulge in a little bit of the 'wait-a-minute' discussions. giving the blind guy a fire sparkler.

now wait a minute, i mean, i'm all out for letting everyone have fun but, it's like bringing a deaf person to an opera show and getting him to enjoy everything as poetry in motion or whatever they call it. and finally, it ends with sheikh haikel being all black and saying "ye-ah". oh and he also politely adds "good morning singapore", even though the premiere of the video was at 2155 hours and it's one of those moments that you just get wholly confused.

in the extended video, you of course got the "behind the scenes" or also known as "the making of". now, it was a cheap ass video. i don't need to know how they made it. i probably knew how they made it. a living room to house (house, home, whatever) the orchestra and the bathroom for the singers for them to feel right at home (i really am not using it as a pun). and what was with the whole Monster cable advertising. it was so obvious. advertising the most overpriced headphones in the market. everyone with their Monster beats. Monster beats everywhere. why Monster? if i saw another Monster i could just cry. i've listened to the Monster beats headphones before, and they aren't that good as what people make the Monsters out to be. or are they just trying to reach out to the teenage demographic as they'd probably think that every teenager uses a Monster product. Monsters. argh.

you know what it appeared to me after going through it twice. it almost seemed like a parody at one point. of the WATR. is it? i probably think it is. com'on, it can't be that bad. but, wait, OH YEAH, it could be that bad.

let us just enjoy the actual one. you know, i would have preferred if they had gotten a few new talents and did an acapella version with kit chan. that would've been, wait for it, awesome.

yeah, in addition, i've actually strayed away from my original purpose for this blog. me and my running. oh what they hell. i've started running. alright, that's the end.