The Fredösphere

When you google the news for the word "choir," you get the Oscars:

[...] things become so unbearably overwrought that it may as well have been replaced with a burning baby impaled on a fencepost while a choir of devils sing a song called War Is Bad and point at the audience in a menacing way. Will Munich win the Best Film Oscar? Probably not this year.  Current Best Film Oscar betting odds - 16/1

and Barbie:

George Cunningham was the nicest boy at school. George Cunningham was loved by all the girls because he was sweet, clean cut and good-looking. He sang in the choir, played guitar, starred in school plays and was just about the biggest simp any fifth grade had ever seen. The guy was just too wonderful. George was a big, continually smiling presence, a boy born without rough edges, a boy loved by teachers and praised by his minister. George Cunningham was, in short, exactly the kind of guy I hated and he might as well have been wearing a little tag marked KEN.

One of the many burdens of success:  unauthorized people listening to your music:

Presumably, the ramifications have pissed [David] Gray off. "Babylon" blared out hulky SUVs blowing fossil fuels into the atmosphere, damaging the Ozone, and increasing the threat of global warming -- cars driven by the trophy wives of wealthy bankers working hard making millions of dollars and exploiting third world countries. Apparently, the wounds have not yet healed.

Blues artist Howie Gelb felt stained.  Huh?  Is that a good thing?

"The next day they had me scheduled to play in a church, and when I arrived early to check out the piano, I was held spellbound by a rehearsing gospel choir. I was riveted by the next choir that got up, and the one that followed blew my mind. I left feeling dizzy and wobbly, as though I'd been injected with something. I felt stained by the experience."

Yet another critic finds the Vienna Boy Choir not living up to its reputation:

Perhaps because of the rigors of the road, the performance -- as charming as it tried to be -- often sounded rote. The choristers generated little excitement with their music making, and the pieces -- many just a couple minutes long -- did little to hold our attention.

Gene Simmons rolls out a reality show called "Rock School."  How original.

After the transformation, these musicians will have to perform in front of 5 000 rock fans as the support act for Motorhead. And wait until you see these thirteen-year-olds.

Josh ("The Emperor") plays trumpet, speaks elvish … and is not into rock ("I think it's vulgar.").

Rodney (Rods) plays piano, sings in both the school choir and its gospel choir. He was not impressed by "Gene's shallowness".

Dudley (Dudders) plays most instruments and wants to be a neurosurgeon. After the series he said: "Gene's not someone I would look up to."

Kwame ("Mr Cool") plays piano and also sings in a gospel choir. After the series he admitted rock music isn't "just noise any more".[...]

Will the 50-odd Simmons be up to the task?

Rock School's opening session finds him pulling up to the English boarding school in a limousine. He draws indifferent reactions from the students who find him "arrogant" and "middle-aged".

As one UK critic put it: "Think To Sir, With Love, starring Satan."

Unlike Simmons' kids, some move in a retrograde direction:

"Playing properly on a vintage machine will often eliminate a lot of surface noise and make the sound more realistic, as if the singer is in the room," he explained."

The singers heard in his room include tenor Enrico Caruso, who died about the time the teen's Victrola was made - about 85 years ago.

We've known about this theory for a while, but this juxtaposition somehow puts a new gloss on it (emphasis mine):

Both books hinge on the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had a child, and that that bloodline survives to this day. The earlier book set out the notion that Christ did not die on the cross but moved to France.