Re: POLL: Respect and Appreciation for Music
But seriously...
My answer in both cases would be 'not particularly' in that some musicians/singers are fine songwriters and some are fine (or in some cases great - look at Elvis) interpreters of other people's songs.
Some artists, Bob Dylan for example, will always be immortal in rock music because of their great gift for composing songs of power and grace. Some will be remembered just for great performance.
However, I do draw the line at performers actually performing on their own songs - remember Milli Vanilli?
Traumaddict Traveller in the arts
Posts: 23
(1/9/02 3:02 pm) Reply
Re: POLL: Respect and Appreciation for Music
**Trauma spindles (whatever that means) Sand's first post.... violently
I agree 100%. As I said about Garth earlier, I liked him fine before I realized he has someone do the dirtywork for him... It has colored my admiration of him (his talent, not his phenomenal butt) but not enough that it takes the enjoyment out of his music for me. "Bring me two Pina Coladas - I want one for each hand - Let's set sail with Captain Morgan..."
If you take time to read album (CD) liner notes, you'd be suprised at who really does and does not write their own music. Personally, I would like to know which artist influenced what part of the song. (Like when you see Hetfield-Ulrich-Hammet under something from "Justice For All," who created what part of the song? Who wrote the lyrics and who thought up the tune? What were they doing when the inspiration hit them?) I find the creative process quite intriguing. I think those sorts of details should be included!
It's also interesting to see who actually writes the songs for those who cannot or do not. Ms. Spears and N'Sync both recorded their most recent **ahem... efforts somewhere in Sweden. Some guy (who is probably VERY rich and sandwiched between a german frauline and a russian lass as we speak) wrote many of the lyrics and music for BOTH of these kids' albums. They were recorded in the same studio with the same producers. (I have no exact names or places for you as I do not own these fine works of art.) Amazing the things one feels compelled to read & learn during a LONG night shift...
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. - Helen Keller
Slave to the image
Unless the artist at least either writes the music/lyrics or plays an instrument I will not waste my time! Let's see where Spears and NSync are five years from now. Oh, and let's not forget J Lopez!
Re: Slave to the image
Well, perhaps I'm about to set the cat among the pigeons!
The singer who writes his own songs is a relatively recent phenomenon (and yes, I know, there are exceptions) which may be why the huge majority of contemporary music will last about as long as your average Elizabeth Taylor marriage vow.
Yep, that's what I believe. We are in the age of disposable music. Great waves of video-borne mediocrity that crash once on Popular Beach then fall back into obscurity. A place that most of it had no business leaving in the first place.
I will be very surprised indeed if very much of today's music is still being enjoyed in 10, no 5 years time.
Personally, I don't give a fiddler's broken string who writes the music. You don't need to be a great songwriter to be a great singer, and you don't have to be a great singer to write a great song. If a person can do both, well that's fine. There are surely plenty of examples around today (despite my rant-for-today above), but a singer who makes a fine job of a song loses no points with me just because he/she didn't write it.
My youngest son is a singer/songwriter/guitarist around town, and he gets more positive reaction from singing great songs by great songwriters than he gets from singing his own stuff.
Not that he writes bad stuff...
But when a singer does sing his own stuff, especially a singer who accompanies him/herself, they are judged on four levels.
Their instrumental skill
The arrangement of the song
Their skill as a singer
and the song itself.
A helluva load to carry.
You could be a very fine singer indeed but without any songwriting talent. There are plenty of those.
Bert Bacarach is wonderful songwriter but cannot carry a tune as a singer.
Same for Chris Christopherson, although he is not quite so bad. (When he's sober.)
Gershwin, Rogers and Hammerstein and Leonard Bernstein were less than popular singers although their music will last considerably longer than anything Jennifer Lopez or Madonna will ever produce and the world is still waiting for a song written by Barbra Streisand (unless you count that excretable effort with Paul Williams, something about an 'easy chair.')
Okay, that's my two bits. I'm now going into my bunker and await the first blitzkreig.
Traumaddict Traveller in the arts
Posts: 47
(1/16/02 2:37 am) Reply
Re: Slave to the image
Mel: Hey, I happen to like J Lo if for no other reason than the fact that she is built like a real woman, not some anorexic fantasy. (Some of us do have hips and butts and thighs, y'know, and are still well-built) lol As far as talent, I can't say she has any more than anyone else out there, but I loved her in Selena and The Wedding Planner. Ok, now there was my little spout off
Pete, I guess it was impossible to see from my earlier posts degrading singers who don't write their own music that I do indeed respect and enjoy some of their talents. Babs is an excellent example. Maybe she doesn't write her own music, but that in no way detracts from her gift. I was focused mainly on contemporary music, and thereby neglected to mention the greats whom you did.
My irritation arises from a disgust with the way the music industry selects a pretty face and basically turns that person into a marionette who sings, dresses and acts how they want them to. Again, that's not saying that some fairly good songs aren't made that way. Think back to groups like The Supremes, or duets by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. To me, those songs are as uplifting as a hymn to a religious person. On a shallow note, I can't deny being partial to "Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguillera..
I just feel a deeper respect and even empathy with those performers who write their own stuff. How they can mold their feelings and experiences into sound and rhyme, rhythm and harmony. To me, their devotion and passoin for the work they do is evident, much more so than a trip-hop rhythm quickly orchestrated on an assembly line of a recording studio by faceless nameless and unthanked artists. They are the house, the singer is the paint.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. - Helen Keller
Re: Slave to the image
TA,
I find it difficult to disagree with any of that. Except maybe for JL's butt which should only be mentioned in awed whispers.
Speaking of appearances, I watched a TV documentary on the making of a docudrama (not yet released) about the life of Mario Lanza. The voice of Mr Lanza is to be provided by a Canadian tenor (whose name I forget) who is unfortuntately short and chunky with long, wiry red hair. He has an oustandingly beautiful voice but he must find it difficult getting romantic operatic parts. Maybe if he had a better butt...
A very large percentage of today's popular music would go nowhere without the assistance of video. Which to my mind shifts it out of the area of music per se and firmly into the area of visual entertainment (with music.) Even live concerts seem to need World War II pyrotechnics and migraine-inducing lighting effects.
I absolutely agree about the manufactured talent we see today. But it seems that we deserve it. Wasn't it Sam Goldwyn who said, "Nobody ever lost money by underestimating the American (read General) public."
On the basis that, 'People treat us the way we teach them to treat us,' while we continue to buy this rubbish, the image-makers will continue to provide it.
I see now that you were drawing a direct comparison between a (musical) product and a performer who does it all alone, from the ground up. Hard to argue with.
Video in particular and TV in general is killing popular music. Well, no, not killing it exactly, but certainly maiming it.
But I guess we shouldn't forget that running alongside this ugly machine which is today's popular music, is a thread of good music. Now if only the bankrollers could figure out a way to make it popular...
Speaking of the 'humourous' side of music....there was a documentary on 2-3 years ago about the er...'musical' career of David Cassidy. One of the people interviewed for the doco was Alice Cooper.
Alice was asked whether (back in the 70s) he resented the huge success of people like David Cassidy (and Donny Osmond etc) and he revealed that he actually knew Cassidy quite well and used to play golf with him (at the height of Cassidy's fame.) He said that he had to keep that 'secret' at the time because if it leaked out that 'Alice Cooper played golf' it would ruin his image.
He also had another great line; he was asked what he thought of Cassidy's music and he said (paraphrasing) 'Man, I thought the dude was cool, he used to have people 'passing out' at his concerts, just through sheer excitement. Of course people passed out at my concerts too, but that was for different reasons."
Alice...
Ozzie...
David Lee...
Eminem
Traumaddict Traveller in the arts
Posts: 60
(1/22/02 4:55 am) Reply
Re: Slave to the image
Thanks for the laugh, Sandy...
As trashy as I know it must seem, for some of us we love the celeb gossip. For some weird reason, I get off on knowing that Alice and David were hanging out playing golf! FORE! lmao What's next - Mandy Moore playing tennis with Ozzy? Eminem and Mariah Carey getting married? OOPS - wait - guess that one wouldn't be too weird heh
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. - Helen Keller
Slave to the image
Re: Slave to the image
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