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Sunday, February 08, 2004
Mario Lanza, "Be My Love"
(March 10, 1951)
Why was he a big star? What was the appeal? He was extraordinarily hunky; a solid figure with exotic, dark eyes. That I understand. But for all I know or care, while Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli may be considerably less talented as opera singers than Lanza, but they're much better pop singers, hands-down. They live in a world where rock is far more inescapable than it probably was for Lanza, so almost without trying, they have a natural sense of the demotic and everyday in pop, often lapsing into a kind of near-folky soft-spoken intimacy that literally wouldn't register in the pre-microphone world of opera. In contrast, aided by a similarly Brobdignagian orchestra and choir, Lanza sounds here like a blowhard, or -- Jesus God -- like a Johnny Ray with "talent," milking every phrase with earthshaking overstatement so thoroughly he sounds downright neurotic in parts. 2
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