sashime76

How exactly did these guys become singers? Not to offend anyone (if you are a fan to anyone mentioned), but they can't carry a tune in a bucket in my opinion.

William Hung - thank god his 15 minutes is up!!!!!!!!
Tom Petty - Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers.
Ric Ocasek - The Cars.
Joe Cocker - I'd rather sit through an opera performance!
Carly Simon
Stevie Nicks
Joe Jackson
Shakira - she can shake it though.
Bob Dylan - I think he "reads" his songs, not that good a reader either.
Steven Tyler - granted they are still popular after 3 decades.

There are many others but I can't think of more right now.

Redlemon

I once heard a song done by people impersonating Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, and Bob Dylan. It was great, you couldn't understand a single word.

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aberkok

sahsime: Appreciation for singing is a highly subjective, so obviously for the people on your list to have success, somebody must have responded to their style. Try to think about the differences between singers and you might find that you end up getting hooked on a certain aspect of their style.

Some I can think of off the top of my head are:

Tone: What does the voice sound like? I suspect this is your point of contention with these singers. Steven Tyler for example started out a pretty good tenor, but over the years he changed to quite the screecher, and for my money, it fits great with Aerosmith's middle period (pre-90s).

Diction: How the words are pronounced. You can really get creative here. I'm a big fan of Tori Amos for this. She'll play with vowels in a way that almost changes them completely into other ones.

Storytelling: Probably why your list of singers find so much success. Ultimately a singer is trying to get an idea across. That idea doesn't necessarily have to be conveyed in a way that is traditionally beautiful, as long as it is strongly presented. Possibly the biggest secret to successful singing.

Can you give some examples of singers that you do like?

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Grancey

I'm assuming you included William Hung as a joke. After considering the rest of your list, I would really like to know who you think CAN carry a tune.

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ratbastid

I'd say it's amply clear that Tom Waits didn't become the powerhouse he is because of his vocal brilliance. Or, well... he is brilliant, vocally, it's just not much like what anyone else would do.

hannukah harry

just think of how boring music would be if everyone sung perfectly like pavorattie? part of the beauty of these people you mention is the lack of perfection in their style.

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K-Wise

Asside from Hung every single person on that list is fantastic. I'll agree some can't sing (Dylan, Ocasek, MAYBE Petty but you try singing Free Falling) but most of them are great singers.

Joe Cocker you really think he can't sing? I think he's got not only a great voice but a unique one. Steven Tyler are you ufckin kidding me??? Listen to Dream On and re-evaluate your opinion of him. To me he is one of the all time best rock vocalists ever..you might as well have thrown down Plant's name if you pick Steven. I love Carly's voice...I happen to think it sounds particularly beautiful in songs like Coming Around Again, Thats The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be, and Nobody Does It Better just to name a few. Shakira cannot sing english too well but some of her earlier Spanish albums are really quite good. Stevie Nicks has been voted best female vocalist before in the past so obviously someone thinks she can sing, although I will admitt she lost her voice quite a bit over the years and it's starting to sound a little froggy. The rest of them I'm not familiar with.

I'm a vocalist myself and I know what good sounds like and one of the ways I can tell is the fact that I can mimic almost anyones voice almost exactly. Whenever I have a hard time singing someones music I know they can sing because they'd have to be able to for me not to be able to do it. Low tones I can sing right along with Cocker and Steven hell even Carly but when they reach their high notes and their screams...nope..can't do it.

Okay in my opinion someone who can't sing at all....is....let me try and think outside of pop music here for a second and try and find someone along the same lines of who you mentioned here...Aha! David Lee Roth! Asside from a few high pitched screams every now and then the guy really isn't a great vocalist at all. Great showman and frontman but anybody who can carry a tune can sing like Diamond Dave. Thats my one example I'll think of more later.

Asta!!

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warrrreagl

Judging from that list, I would guess he probably follows Kermit, Ernie, and Grover pretty closely.

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Locobot

Billie Holiday had a one octave range to her voice...

Shakira is the only person on your list who didn't earn her position as a singer. She has parents with deep pockets and the above-mentioned ability to shake her ass.

Aladdin Sane

William Hung - meant to be a joke from the beginning

Tom Petty - a distinctively Southern voice and inflection, Petty made his well-deserved mark on American music well before most people in this forum were born.

Ric Ocasek - created a sound that was at the leading edge of a monentous change in American rock. In the day, we called it "New Wave," and it represented a rejection of what we called "corporate rock," which was formulaic, predictable, and far from the rebellious roots of rock that we longed for. The Cars symbolized, at the time, a new wind blowing in American music.

Joe Cocker - a passionate, wonderful voice, Joe reminds us old-timers of the decade of the 60s; of Woodstock, of an era that began with hope for positive change, but ended in violence, drug addiction, assassination, and disillusionment.

Carly Simon- the sexy siren of her day; another hippychic who attained fame with a hit album or two. I can't imagine why she is on this list.

Stevie Nicks-- I liked Stevie, and her sexy voice does it just fine for me. She reminds me of the coked-out early 70s that the late 60s became.

Joe Jackson - see Ric Ocasek; but Jackson, a Brit, was more important, more serious, more cool in the age of New Wave. In my memory, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello represent a piece of the same musical fabric of their day.

Shakira - I have no idea. If my memory serves, she has a nice ass.

Bob Dylan - this wonderfully American bard, poet, and working musician is without peer. An enigma who will (in fact, already has) go down in history as the greatest American singer/songwriter of his time. Without question.

Steven Tyler - He produced the background music to a roadtrip we took to Florida in '76. Toys in the Attic was a fun album, but we wore it out.

Most of the names on this list are just the opposite of the description given by the original poster. Musical taste is very subjective indeed.

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K-Wise

Neil Young is another who can't really sing but makes excellent music regardless.

Asta!!

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cyrnel

Aladdin, you hit it pretty well.

Several of these artists belong in the singer/songwriter category. They are their music. Dylan, Petty, Jackson (and of course, Neil) would top my list of those whose writing was more important to their success than their vocal talent. Compare their careers to corporate formula acts.

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jhkayakr

I hope American Idol isn't your idea of singing.

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roachboy

if you want to hear a series of truly horrifying recordings, listen to the kronos quartet trying to cover various "pop" tunes---like purple haze.

you can hear the effects of the fact that someone had scored hendrix's piece then arranged it for string quartet---it seems that the quartet somehow imagined that the scoring would have no effect on the resulting sound--but it is horrible in that the "we are getting down now" sense derives from these prissy pitch bends that they do as a feeble attempt to imitate hendrix....not able to break with the antiquated euro-classical conceptions of "correct" but nonetheless trying to produce versions of hendrix (for example) that retain the features of the originals, the best they were able to do was produce novelty records, which are interesting mostly as a kind of list of things that classical players should not do when they try to cover pop songs.

but i think that you could apply the same general critique to almost any cover version. excessive reverence for the original seems to turn most of them to tedium.
same goes for many jazz players--for example, i find miles davis's version of "time after time" to be unlistenable..and this from a hopeless fan of miles' work from around 1960 to 1975....

in the end, i suspect that the problem lay in a basically patronizing relation to the originals, the confusion of the (very) straightforward structural features of most pop songs/pop performances with the absence of complexity.

if you really think that a classically-trained baritone could cover dylan better than dylan does, then i would suggest you pony up for a recording and post it so we can hear what a "proper" version would be like.

personal aside: my brother is a bluegrass musician.
now i hate bluegrass like few things on this earth, but i respect the musicianship involved with pulling off the sound because it is much much harder to do at all, not to mention do well, than you would think from listening to recordings of it. the vocal arrangements might be locked into modes rooted in protestant hymn-singing, but the simplicity of the form does not mean that it is easy to pull off, particularly live. part of this follows from the starting assumption: you have to believe in these forms to do them. to communicate through them they have to communicate something to you. they can't be simply devices that you pick up and use (or "correct") if you want to be able to work in that form and not become a joke.

bluegrass instrumentation tends to be unforgiving of mistakes was well--for example a banjo produces almost no resonance, so there is no latitude for covering technical missteps. so while the structures played are simple, what goes into producing those structures sonically is really not, and it requires an enormous level of dedication to do. that i do not share this type of dedication to this form does not mean that i do not recognize it.

i dont think everyone has to like everything...but it does not follow from disliking a form, or disliking particular performers, that you know anything about what goes into making the performances. it seems really self-limiting to move from disliking a form to disrespecting the players who engage in it.

unless you really think that you can produce better, more correct versions--in which case i would encourage you to do it, and maybe post them here for our general instruction.

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Locobot

and amusement!

Sashime76 hasn't responded, I smell troll.

Re: Kronos Quartet--agree about their Hendrixploitation, complete cheese. Disagree on their ability to eschew the shackles of the European canon, they've had many departures into traditional African music and avaunt garde compositions, much of which they pull off. Their performance of Shostakovich's quartet no. 8 is without peer. Members have changed though...

K-Wise

Pat Boone or whatever his name is did record a "metal" album...thats pretty bad...You saying this Kronos Quartet is worse than that?

Asta!!

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sadistikdreams

Shakira is a yodeler.
Listen to her latino releases, its very obvious.

And... that ass... daym

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ShaniFaye

I want to see a list from the OP of people they think CAN sing

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sashime76

Yeah, William Hung was just a joke but he did release a CD, didn't he? As I said, the list I slapped together was my based on my personal opinion. Some of the names on the list, Stevie Nicks, Steven Tyler, sure, they have a couple/few good songs but if you were to judge by their vocal capabilities, neither can hit the highs or lows like Anne Wilson (Heart), Roy Orbison. Or as sexy as Kim Carnes or Nat King Cole.

No doubt many of them have written, composed, produced their own albums but that wasn't my point. As thread titled, "How did they become singers?" Here is an article on "The Worst Rockband Ever", some of the bands I like made the list. Did it upset me? No! Whoever compiled the data is entitled to his/her own opinion. I don't see why some of you got riled up over my list?? Take a look here if you are interested: http://www.jericsmith.com/worstbands.htm

Now, again, based on my PERSONAL opinion, I think the following CAN sing, you can disgree with me and I am fine with that:
Robert Plant, Brad Delp (Boston), Billy Squire, Dave Bickler (original lead singer: Survivor), Lous Gramm (The Foreigner), Lou Rawls, Peabo Bryson, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, George Michael......
Ann Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Tyler, Sheena Easton, Annie Lennox, Cher (she may be strange but she can sing), Celine Dion, Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle, Faith Hill, Shania Twain.......

I sort of gave up on the current crop of singers so I haven't mentioned any. The vocals, lyrics of today's music aren't quite as good as they were 10, 15, 20 years ago.

sashime76

Redlemon

Pat Boone, In a Metal Mood / No More Mr. Nice Guy! I love cover versions, and HAD to purchase this album. I'm not sure why he made it, but I think he was joking. In some ways, I enjoy it.



Kronos is significantly different that the Pat Boone album. I disagree that it is horrible. It is simply a re-imagining of rock. Purists need not apply. For another similar view, check out The Bad Plus, a jazz combo, who has arrangements of Heart of Glass, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Iron Man.

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omega2K4

I love Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He/They are one of my favorite singers/bands.

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roachboy

sashime: for whaty its worth, there was nothing snippy in the post above: i just wondered about the slide between not liking a singer and dismissing what the singer does, the form in which he or she works. which is why i put the bit about bluegrass in.

redlemon: i like the idea of re-imagining rock, but dont think kronos pulls it off.

this is not to say anything about other things they do--there are pieces they perform that i quite like, though in general they are not my first choice for string quartets, in those cases where this type of choice seems relevant at all.

what i am much less sure of is why you would ascribe problems with how kronos does a particular aspect of their schtick of purism when it is possible to simply not like it on any number of grounds.

the most general problem that underpins my view of kronos doing hendrix is that i do not see the point of covers in general if they do not try to do some violence to/transformation of the original. their version of purple haze is pretty close to note-for note: the modifications they introduce into it are a straight function of hearing a string quartet do a note for note version--this is why i understand it as a novelty record. it seems to me that if you are going to bother with a cover, you should transform the piece into something else--coltranes version of my favorite things makes much more sense to me on these grounds than kq's purple haze.

and it doesnt have the bizarro goofy sustained exactitude of the primus cover of the wall either--a project i do not really understand as it too is largely note-for note--but the scale of it makes primus's version into something kinda other than the copy, somethign much goofier than a copy. for myself, though, this goofiness only puts off the collapse into tedium for a few minutes--after that, my reaction shifts back to wondering what the point of it is.

i mean, the recordings exist and are better at being themselves than a cover version could be: if you are not going to bend or transform or assault the original, why are you wasting you time doing the piece at all?

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Redlemon

roachboy: It's been probably 15 years since I last heard the Kronos Purple Haze cover, so I, er, "checked out" a copy from the "internet library". Ahem. So, I feel that, in general, a cover needs to strongly reflect the group that is performing it, and therefore the song should not sound identical to the original. However, I think it can be done while keeping all the original notes. I still believe that this version "feels like" the Kronos Quartet, and even if the notes are a direct transcription, the feel is different enough to make this song work. This may partly be because I don't really listen to string quartets (I have a Turtle Island String Quartet album, but that's it).

I personally don't include jazz when I'm discussing covers, because that is an entirely different world of song reimagination; but, that appears to be your consideration for what makes a good cover. What would you consider to be a good rock cover?

(We're now discussing covers by string groups in a thread about whether or not people are bad singers. I'd call that a pretty good threadjack.)

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Locobot

This thread was started by questioning the careers of some of the most beloved singing voices of the last 50 years. And then you have the gall to suggest that svengali bullshit like Celine Dion is somehow superior? Faith Hill can sing? news to me.

dougiefresh

This thread reminds me of something I heard from Joe Strummer on a CD somewhere. He was talking about how they first went into a studio with a professional producer. The producer insisted Joe sang his words clearly. At first, Joe said he did it and then realized that it took all of the "piss" out of the songs. He also mentioned how he loved listening to the reggae albums and how it took a bunch of listens to make out what they were singing about. Like, the song became a puzzle of some kind. Amen to that.

K-Wise

No I think just about all of those people really can sing. Some of my favorite vocalists are in there(Gladys Knight, Lous Gramm, Brad Delp, Ann Wilson, Lennox, etc.) The thing that puzzles me is that you can think they sing any better than the likes of some of the ones you mentioned who CAN'T sing.

I can agree with that partially but all the time I'm discovering new(or recently put on a pedestal) vocalists that are just really really good if not phenominal. Josh Groban, Brent Smith (Shinedown), Jason Mraz, Tom Chaplin (Keane), Wait Lafty (Silvertide), All the girls in Eisley(listen to their harmonies) and more that are brought to my attention all the time.

Asta!!

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jorgelito

One thing I never understood about Bob Dyan fans is taht they claim it's not the music (which is rather simple and repetitive) but the lyrics. I then ask can you understand what's he's saying/mumbling/"singing"? The answer is always "no, but it's the words man, it's the words."

So, if you hear a Bob Dylan song on the radio, and can't understand the words, and the music is only so-so, then how do you know he's a "poet" or a great writer? People buy into the hype.

It's all good, there's something for everyone. People liked Will Hung for similar folk-hero reasons that they like Bob Dylan. The main difference is Bob Dylan writes his own material. People like what they like, you can't criticize someone cause they like Celine Dion for the same reason you can't criticize someone for liking Bob Dylan.

My Personal favorite vocalists:

Marvin Gaye - self explanatory
young Michael Jackson - a purer voice you will never hear
Stevie Wonder - control, just great control
Prince - unimitable
Barry White - I'm not even a female and he has me seduced
Bob Marley - not very good timbre but amazing feeling and very emotive. Brings me to tears
Tracy Chapman - talk about singer-songwriter

Jewel - simply amazing - great writer
Morrissey - interesting
Joe Cocker - pretty soulful for a white guy; really impressive
Elvis - Just a nice voice (younger Elvis)

Johnny Hartman - a jazz great - like audio silk & velvety chocolate

Julie Andrews - I'm serious
Maria Callas - the last of the opera divas; true diva

I'll second the opinion on the lack of good vocalists these days. Everyone seems to either shout, scream, shriek, lip-sync, rap/talk/speak thingy and tries to pass it off as singing. And there's waaay too much ad-libbing *cough..Christina...*cough*

Someone mentioned harmonies:

The Beach Boys - a class of their own
Take 6 - touched by God, their vocals are so tight

Kronos Quartet is more of a novelty I think - I like the Bobby McFerrin & Yo-yo Ma thing.

Hey my two cents so don't get all crazy :

K-Wise

Absolutely! One of my all time favorites


I think I mentioned harmonies in reference to Eisley. Their harmonies are different but still quite good.

Asta!!

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jorgelito

Hey K-Wise, can you tell me more about Eisley? Is it a group? If you like harmonies, you should really check out the groups I mentioned.

So Barry White doesn't do anything for ya' eh? :

K-Wise

Well the Beach Boys need no introduction for me I already know how great they are. The rest I shall have to look up.

Eisley are a band made up of 4 siblings (3 sisters and a brother) and a friend. The girls sing. Their music is vaguely reminiscent of Sixpence None The Richer in my opinion. They have a myspace.com page

Eisley@myspace.com I'd recommend listening to Marvelous Things cause it's the one with the most harmonies on that page.

The also have their own official website located at http://www.eisley.com/

My favorite song of theirs is "I Wasn't Prepared" really pretty song.

No Barry does nothing for me as far as being turned on by a voice does...now if you'd said Sade it would be a different story

Asta!!

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Aladdin Sane

dougiefresh, you are absolutely on to the meat of the matter here.

Joe Strummer is a great example of a great singer who "can't sing" according to convensional measures.

If Joe would've had a different life; if he'd of been an opera academy graduate from Tuscany rather than an art school dropout in London; then the essence of what made Strummer's voice what it was-- uniquely powerful, angst-ridden, beautifully desperate, blue, lively, angry, impathetic, gravel-spitting, take-no-fuckin'-prisoners passionate--it all would've been lost in hitting the high notes and chasing the low ones.

Listen to the Clash's "The Card Cheat." Joe's voice is a fuckin' wreck on that one, but oh my dear God is it beautiful.

Joe Strummer, RIP.

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