BUBLÉ BURST HIS OWN BUBBLE
Saturday, April 01, 2006
When Michael Bublé came to San Antonio in mid-March, I expected more. A whole lot more.
Especially in light of the fact that this 30-year-old Canadian singer became famous for covering some of the Frank Sinatra standards of yesteryear.
To be honest, when I first discovered Bublé’s music, I was ecstatic! Imagine. A chart-topping musician in 2006 who didn’t resort to lyrics filled with foul language or pornographic descriptions. And there he was on Letterman, Leno and The Today Show singing melodies whose words were both understandable and uplifting.
I made a beeline for Barnes & Noble and bought everything Bublé. I had a new musical hero of sorts in the “mainstream” world. Another Josh Groban, another Harry Connick, Jr. as it were. Classy to the core.
His story is as riveting as his music. Growing up in Canada, he worked long summer shifts on his father’s salmon boat in Toronto. And ever since Michael can remember, his grandfather Mitch Santaga, now 77, filled his mind with the melodies of Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Like his father, his grandfather was also a hard-working, blue collar man -- a plumber -- who often drove Michael to his voice lessons and traded out free plumbing jobs for Vancouver band members who let the teenager sing on stage.
According to AskMen.com, “by the age of 17, Bublé was locally known as a great crooner, worth the ticket price of admission at any city stage…After graduation, he moved to Toronto and entered and ultimately won the Canadian Youth Talent Search. After the release of a couple of independent albums, Bublé was aiming to enter the American market.
“Through a co-worker, Bublé got a gig singing at former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's daughter's wedding. Mulroney, a fan of the classic songs Bublé performed, introduced the lad to Grammy-winning producer David Foster.”
And the rest, as they say, is musical history. The compact discs have been flying off the shelves by the millions since his major debut album in 2003, making him a multi-platinum-selling star.
Whether I was driving to work down Highway 281 or burning calories on the treadmill at Spectrum Gym, Michael Bublé and his big band sound was always blasting through my speakers or headphones.
So when I read in The San Antonio Express-News that Bublé was scheduled to perform at the Gonzalez Convention Center, I couldn’t buy tickets for Amy, the McManus bride-to-be, and myself fast enough.
From the very start, the concert was a major disappointment. Some low-rent comedian opened the show at the Lila Cockrell Theater with an act replete with profanity not to mention oral sex jokes.
Amy and I looked at each other in bewilderment. Why would a seemingly class act like Bublé team up with someone so clearly devoid of class? It made no sense.
But, when Bublé offered some of his first ad-lib comments after several well-executed songs, I winced and understood immediately.
He might have the voice of Frank Sinatra, but he’s got the character of Marilyn Manson.
"I'd like the men to know I'm here for you," he said without pause. "These fellows and I, -- we'll put a little air in the tire and you get to ride the bike all night long" – a clear sexual reference for the many unmarried couples in attendance.
While his lyrics are squeaky clean, Bublé’s on-stage dialogue with the audience was filled with sexual innuendo, demeaning comments and crude humor. The moral cacophony created by the discordant disconnect between lyric and banter was like someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard. It was unbearable.
What a contrast! In Entertainment Magazine, he asserted that “I think all these songs have something in common. They have a heart and a soul and the challenge of any singer is to connect with those qualities and make them real for the audience.
On a musical level, Bublé connects with the technical qualities of America’s standards with virtual perfection. But on a true heart-and-soul level, his profane utterances between songs leave the audience confused, wanting so much more.
He could learn a thing or two from Josh Groban in the decency department.
Where did Bublé go astray? I would surmise that it was the company he kept for 13 years before he became a mega star. According to his own recollection to Tricia Duffield on her Australian talk show on September 27, 2005, “I struggled for about 13 years – through the cruise ships, and the club scene and the bars and the strip clubs – everything you can imagine.”
Paul reminds us that “Bad company corrupts good character.” (I Corinthians 15:33) Women who take their clothes off for strange men on a nightly basis are hardly a good influence!
Plus, Bublé’s got an ego to match his loathsomeness. He makes Rush Limbaugh appear as humble as the late Mother Teresa.
According to AskMen.com, he said "After struggling 10 years in obscurity, all of a sudden fame and fortune came and I got a little bit ahead of myself. I was rude and reckless with girls, and I just thought, f*** it, this is my time.'”
How sad!
Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” (Matthew 12:34-35)
Bublé’s making an absolute mint off soulful renditions of Sinatra and Bennett, yet when he chats with the audience on tour, he sounds like Eminem or 50 Cent. Talk about the regret of unrealized expectations!
Even if Sinatra embraced a raunchy lifestyle off-stage, he didn’t, to my knowledge, pollute his concerts with Howard Stern-like rants.
Bublé told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on February 10th, “If you're coming for that whole retro thing, you might be a bit disappointed when I break into a Beastie Boys song."
There seemed to be no bottom to the depravity of Bublé’s course humor. From his crotch-grabbing imitation of Michael Jackson to his jokes about incest and homosexual liaisons, there was apparently nothing off limits.
Proverbs 11:20 says, “The Lord detests men of perverse heart, but he delights in those whose ways are blameless.”
By his own admission in a PBS special, Bublé said that that his fan club comprises everyone from "13 years old to -- you know, to a hundred." Imagine the horror that the eighth grade girl in braces and the 85-year-old in dentures felt in watching his worldly coarseness on display.
I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if, right in the midst of the concert, Bublé had asked women to expose their breasts, competing with rapper Snoop Dogg who salivated over his role as voyeur-host in one of the well-advertised “Girls Gone Wild” videos.
When asked by an on-line teenage girl’s webzine, www.nzgirl.co.nz, what his dream car was, Bublé said, “I don’t really give a s*** about cars, but if I have to have one, just give me a nice Lincoln Town Car with a driver to take me where I need to go.”
His mother must be so proud!
If an old style crooner like Bublé feels the freedom to swear like a sailor, no wonder San Antonio’s pre-teens are at such ease using R-rated language as they’re walking down aisle 5 at Wal-Mart.
When asked if he got many Valentines in 2004, he replied, “I work so hard, it’s really tough to have a girlfriend. How do you look at someone and say, “Okay baby, I really love you, see you in eight months…it just doesn’t work out the way you hope it does. I had a lonely Valentine’s Day, but I was in front of an audience and helping make them horny.”
I guess he sees himself as the new Hugh Hefner without the requisite silk bathrobe and pipe.
In a January 28th, 2005 interview with The Sun, Bublé confessed, "Seven years ago I met my girlfriend, Debbie Timuss, who was engaged to another man. I stole her off him and fell in love. Then I had this success and I thought people needed to think I was single, for my image. We split because I just started ignoring her and sleeping around. I was immature. Anyway, I had a wake-up call on a plane one day. I was rude to this attendant and I thought: 'My parents didn't bring me up to act like this.'”
A wake up call? Hardly! It appears as though he hit the snooze button and went back to sleep.
I wonder if his parents raised him to be vile.
He felt comfortable telling a Canadian magazine called MacLean's that “I think people feel like the world is going to s***.”
Even their reviewer indicated that “the bawdy Bublé‚ spiced up his commentaries with a cuss word or two during the evening.”
His visit to the Alamo City was no exception. At one point, an enthusiastic teenage fan walked up to the Lila Cockrell stage to take a picture. The security guards sent her back to her seat. When Bublé concluded his song, he said, “You know it’s a good concert when some b**** is getting her a** hauled off by security. No one was paying any attention to me. You all were looking at that b****.”
Way to go Michael. Ruin another moment. Refer to a young woman in a condescending manner like she’s some sort of stray mutt. Maybe I should send a copy of my column to PETA. They’d probably object as well.
In his Australian interview with Tricia Duffield, Bublé revealed, “I’m not smooth and cool and hip. I’m a pig…I burp. I say stupid things….I think the image is way cooler than I could ever be. They’ll give me the Sinatra comparison. I say often that there’ll never be another Frank Sinatra. And that I don’t deserve to be put in that category. I have a lot of work to do to have that happen.”
You sure do Mr. Bublé. Here’s your first homework assignment. Imagine Old Blue Eyes on the stage with you. Would you dare be as cavalier and vulgar in his presence?
More importantly, Michael Bublé, like “each of us, will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)
It’s my prayer that not only does his on-stage banter match his classy-to-the-core songs, but more importantly, before he sings his very last song, I hope that Bublé will echo the questions that King David asked, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7)
After all, the true plumb line isn’t Frank Sinatra at all, but God Almighty Himself.
© McManus 2006
Adam McManus hosts a weekday afternoon radio show called "Take A Stand" on AM 630, KSLR in San Antonio, Texas from 3-6 p.m. central. If you’d like him to speak to your group or you’d like to react to this column, call Adam at (210) 344-8481 ext 132 or e-mail adam@takeastand.net. Join 5,800 people and sign up for his weekday e-mail alert about upcoming guests, critical articles and action steps to make a difference, go to: http://www.TakeAStand.net and listen live at http://www.kslr.com |
