Old vs New vocalists

[WayneKerr]

Had a great afternoon yesterday listening to a double CD of Randy Crawford, stunning voice. Last night on the Beeb Alicia Keys was on for an hour with some of her hits, I quite like some of her stuff so decided to watch it. What a complete waste of time. Terrible! She even tried to sing a few covers and failed miserably.

With the odd exception the main crop of singers from the last 20 or so years are such a homogeneous bunch all sounding the same. Instead of belting out a good song they just want to wail their way through with vocal gymnastics. I really doubt I could tell any two female singers apart these days. I guess we have Mariah Carey to blame for this ridiculous form of vocalising.

Conversely, if you go back to the 60-80's within 30 seconds of a song starting you would be able to tell who the vocalist is. Some examples of this would be: Randy Crawford, Gladys Knight, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Three Degrees and even Diana Ross.

Maybe it's me and I'm just getting old

 

[Revolutions]

I think it’s probably more to do with style than ability. Alicia Keys is a classically trained musician. She has a lot of credibility as an artist & songwriter.

There’s so many amazing vocalists around these days. A few off the top of my head: Jenny Lewis, Michael Kiwanuka, Father John Misty, The Staves, Wolf Alice.

 

[Rodolfo]

A little over-stated, though I sympathize. I think it's the major transition to viewing rather than listening to music (deciding/choosing to watch it). Looking good, and/or nice, provocative. etc. video has been sufficient to sell, to advertise for decades now. This very forum illustrates it daily.

I love much vocal music, and remind you of Nancy Wilson's An Older Man is Like An Elegant Wine, also sympathizing.

 

[Gray]

Had a great afternoon yesterday listening to a double CD of Randy Crawford, stunning voice. Last night on the Beeb Alicia Keys was on for an hour with some of her hits, I quite like some of her stuff so decided to watch it. What a complete waste of time. Terrible! She even tried to sing a few covers and failed miserably.

With the odd exception the main crop of singers from the last 20 or so years are such a homogeneous bunch all sounding the same. Instead of belting out a good song they just want to wail their way through with vocal gymnastics. I really doubt I could tell any two female singers apart these days. I guess we have Mariah Carey to blame for this ridiculous form of vocalising.

Conversely, if you go back to the 60-80's within 30 seconds of a song starting you would be able to tell who the vocalist is. Some examples of this would be: Randy Crawford, Gladys Knight, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Three Degrees and even Diana Ross.

Maybe it's me and I'm just getting old

I watched the whole of that Alicia Keys.
As Revolutions pointed out above, she's classically trained - and you can tell by the playing. I do like the (rapless version of) the 'Empire state of mind' track.

But I know exactly what you mean about the vocal style Doug.
It does seem to be a trend - and not one I welcome, but then I usually avoid it.

I know I'm biased, but The 3 Degrees are the world's longest running female group.....for a reason

 

[WayneKerr]

There is no doubting Alicia's classical training and her talent as a songwriter. After having recently acquired some of her albums and liking some of the tracks, (Empire State of Mind part II*), I looked forward to the programme but was disappointed. Maybe "terrible" was the wrong word to use in this context. (*I loathe Jay Z's rap version and any rap for that matter).

What the majority of the current crop of artists seem to lack is a distinctive voice which sets them apart from the plethora of similar vocal styles and for this reason I can't warm to them. I have said this before but it's sometimes good to see these artists cover older songs in an attempt to make it their own, but they generally fail miserably because they just don't have the ability to do the song justice.

Maybe the The Buggles were right... video did kill the radio star

 

[Rui]

Had a great afternoon yesterday listening to a double CD of Randy Crawford, stunning voice. Last night on the Beeb Alicia Keys was on for an hour with some of her hits, I quite like some of her stuff so decided to watch it. What a complete waste of time. Terrible! She even tried to sing a few covers and failed miserably.

With the odd exception the main crop of singers from the last 20 or so years are such a homogeneous bunch all sounding the same. Instead of belting out a good song they just want to wail their way through with vocal gymnastics. I really doubt I could tell any two female singers apart these days. I guess we have Mariah Carey to blame for this ridiculous form of vocalising.

Conversely, if you go back to the 60-80's within 30 seconds of a song starting you would be able to tell who the vocalist is. Some examples of this would be: Randy Crawford, Gladys Knight, Donna Summer, Whitney Houston, Three Degrees and even Diana Ross.

Maybe it's me and I'm just getting old

not getting old ,just reality , when the 90´s started i could never imagine that i would listen to several new bands that had in common their taste in music and noticeable influences from older artists and styles of playing , i did liked a Alicia keys song written by the vocal of four non-blondes band a soft rock rythm with some funky efects from guitar in the song doncha know(sky is blue)song from the movie where she appears about slavery in the U.S. at the time of the underground railroad, so many bad artists that are famous like the taylor swift thing that i don´t even understand why is she a good singer , and many more with great hit songs that i didn´t even understand what was the reason for those to be heard , about one recognising bands by their first seconds in a song was easier ,so many diferent type of productions till the 2000´s and earlier ,today is remasterized and rematers of a remasterized song like the two albuns from the beatles in the 80´s a white and a black called remasters ,today a doble album with remasterized songs of remasters, maybe next is the triple R masters, but i think it´s a trend of re-remasterized old songs and people do buy the same album 3 or 4 times in their life time because of several re-editions of an album already squished to the fullest but then a remaster of the remaster appears and one as to have it ,it´s somehow diferent ,like the dark side of the moon ,i used to like the album but today i almost feel sick when started to hear the registry machine open and close with coins on it or is it a slot machine and why had david gilmour a slot machine at home, and still have the first record i bought and later someone ofered me a box of pink floyds albums, like when the chemical brothers release a song with a start from a pink floyd´s song initial bass, everybody knew it but when asked all looked to the clouds like if the name of the song sampled would appear written on the sky but hear saucerfull of secrets album and notice block rockin´beats, Someone is going to writte that i´m out of topic but i think it´s related or isn´t it, sorry if i´m wrong