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SITE RATING:  3/10 SITE REVIEW:   I know that Germany has embraced such bizzaro trends as the pop music of David Hasselhoff, but honestly, as a Euro-phile, I expect better of them than this.  Florian Sitzman, apparently inspired by the pop dreck of The Young Messiah, decided to arrange and produce his own "updated" version of Handel's oratorio, which was dual-produced as a video concert (warning: mullet alert!) and released as an album.  Pulling together a group of pop vocalists and "orchestra" of drums, synths, electric and bass guitar, a small string section, and egads, is that a English horn?  Along with the usual generic gospel choir swaying along.  Blending together like oil and water, Handel's baroque stylings and clockwork-like drum beats come together like a radioactive hybrid of every cheesy Christian-music pow-wow ever assembled. There's nothing screamingly wrong with the singers, or arrangement (I actually kind of dig the English horn), but the vacuous homogenizing of Handel's music is not improved upon here - powerful moments are watered down, rather than accentuated; softer, sacred moments are wiped out completely - and rather than a transcendent experience, this feels like one long infomercial; I kept waiting for someone to pull a blender out from behind their backs and a CALL NOW! number to start flashing on the screen.  It probably doesn't help that the video's announcer looks like he's got a weasel nesting on his upper lip.  Apparently, this production was a success in its initial run - a 2011 "update" was conceived and performed, but regardless, in my estimation, it's best to stick with the original.

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