“This program, no matter what, is always fun for me to skate," he said, "And I loved it.” Then, his 4-minute coronation veered to the classic rock and pop hit “Rocket Man,” then finally turned to an electrifying “Bennie and the Jets” remix by the singer Pink and rapper Logic, who declared “Momma, I made it/True story, I have upgraded.”įor Chen, that meant upgraded all the way to the gold medal. It started with an understated, haunting snippet of “Yellow Brick Road” backed by more traditional instrumentals. It will be hard to top Chen's spectacular display to music by Elton John on Thursday. “When that hip-hop beat drops, he’s gotten through all the technical elements and he can just show off his personality and that changes your view of what you think skating is.”
“It’s edgy, it’s fun, it’s young,” said Rippon, who helps to coach figure skater Mariah Bell, one of Chen's closest friends on the American team. The eclectic mix of genres seen so far have produced a new tone in the most stylish of performances, which are being heavily rewarded by the judges.Īdam Rippon, a member of the American bronze medal team at the 2018 Olympics, called Chen’s performance a watershed moment for the sport and predicts that his soundtrack will inspire a new and different generation of athletes. 2 - or expansive movie scores from films like “Gladiator,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Moulin Rouge.”īut the Beijing Olympics has witnessed the rise of more current, mainstream and offbeat music that first took hold four years ago in Pyeongchang, the first Winter Games in which lyrics were allowed. Traditional figure skating music is often classical or instrumental - Boléro, Swan Lake, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.
“It was like, something that totally just made sense, and it was just so much fun to skate to and practice.” “I’ve historically skated to pretty slower pace, more classical pieces, and so bringing in this faster pace (was) very exciting,” said Chen, a classically trained pianist who's been spending his free time in Beijing strumming his Stratocaster. figure skater, wrapping up a near-perfect, gold-winning free skate to cap his historic run at the Winter Games.Īs he flaunted through the last minute of his Thursday program at Capital Indoor Stadium with such joy and personality, it was clear the 22-year-old American's diverse musical selections - in this case, a remixed, Elton John-heavy “Rocketman” medley of classic rock, pop, hip-hop and rap - marked a new, edgier dawn for winning performances. On the barren sheet of ice, matching the fierceness of that energy at the Beijing Olympics, was the typically reserved U.S. It couldn't have described Nathan Chen any better. BEIJING – First there was the explosive hip-hop beat drop, then a bold rap verse proclaiming, “The greatest of all time!”